Epiphany
by samaryley
Summary: Nobody was prepared for the tragic events that were to occur that night, changing the lives of all the Curtises forever. OC Point of View. Non-Mary Sue sisterfic. Scout Curtis had just turned twelve the night her parents died.
1. The birthday

EPIPHANY.

It had been one of my English vocabulary words a few weeks prior. I remembered looking it up in my brother Ponyboy's dictionary. I probably could have just asked him what it meant, he had been in the same English class the year before, but I hate it when he makes me feel stupid for not knowing something when he does.

_epiphany n., __from Late Latin epiphania, from Late Greek, plural, probably alteration of Greek epiphaneia appearance, manifestation, from epiphainein to manifest._

There was some definition that had something to do with a Christian holiday, but I was pretty sure that wasn't what Mrs. Richards, my English teacher, was looking for. I scanned down further and found a few meanings that looked reasonable for an English Literature class, and copied them down onto my homework.

_epiphany: a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b: a revealing scene or moment._

It turned out that the answer on our vocabulary quiz was a bit simpler.

epiphany = a life-changing moment or experience. I got it right on the quiz, but I don't think that I truly understood at the time what people meant when they said they had a "life-changing moment." Being a pretty decent reader for my age, I was fascinated by the epiphanies (now that I know the word I might as well use it…) the characters in the books I read were always having. Something big would happen, and suddenly their lives would change. In an instant the reality of their situation would come into focus, and, in a split second, they had come of age. I guess I liked reading those kinds of books so much because my own life seemed so uneventful. Boring, even. Sure, like every other kid I had my ups and downs, but for the most part, life just went on as usual for me and my family. I have three older brothers and I guess you could say I was living a pretty sheltered life, for a kid growing up on the streets of South Tulsa, anyway. Ours was a tough neighborhood but our house had always seemed a bubble, a safe haven from the rest of the world. It wasn't much, but it was comfortable, and, to me, it felt safe.

I mention those life-changing moments because I think I had started to kind of wish that I would have one. On the brink of becoming a teenager, I guess I felt it was about time that I started being able to look at the world with a new perspective, an added dimension - Just a little something to nudge my life over that line from ordinary to interesting.

The old adage "be careful what you wish for" never rang so true to me as just a few weeks later, when my wish came suddenly, horribly true, and my life truly did turn upside-down in just a moment. I'm not sure what I had had in mind for my own epiphany, but it sure wasn't what I actually got.

__________

It was a Thursday night, October second, my twelfth birthday. Coincidentally, it was also the weekend of my parents' twentieth anniversary. We were having a special birthday dinner for me, and my parents had plans to go out later in the evening for a movie. On their actual anniversary, Friday, my oldest brother Darry had a football game. They never missed one of Darry's games. He was a freshman wide receiver at the University of Tulsa, just as Dad had been in his day. Darry's games felt like _our_ games, and the whole family was expected to turn out to cheer him on, along with most of my brothers' friends who were usually hanging around with our family anyway.

My family was far from being Darry's only devoted fans - he had quite a following of girls who came out to the game cheering him on and hoping he would ask them out afterward. I never really saw him as handsome but I guess the college girls sure did. But as much of a jock and a popular kid as he was, Darry was actually a big homebody; generally all he wanted to do after his games was come home and talk with Dad and my brother Soda about what had happened during the game.

As for me and football games, I liked wandering around the crowd with all the other players' younger siblings, watching the cheerleaders. I appreciated the attention I sometimes got at the games for being Darry's little sister, but, honestly, I didn't get much of what happened out on the field. Football was pretty much a mystery to me. Real football, anyway, not the unruly games of tackle I watched my brothers and their friends play in our back yard. At the college games (and Darry's countless high school games I had attended), all I saw was a bunch of tough guys fighting each other in fancy equipment. Just a more dignified version of the gang fighting that went on in our neighborhood, it seemed to me. I watched Darry mostly, and I knew his job was to catch the ball and run with it for a touchdown, but that was the extent of my football expertise. For all I knew, my biggest brother was cool, and that made me feel cool by association. Darry and I were buddies, in as much way possible for a nineteen year old and his then eleven year-old kid sister…

I was kind of a shy kid, and was always a little embarrassed with the focus being on me. Once my family took me to a restaurant and they sang "Happy Birthday" and I nearly died of embarrassment. Even at home it felt weird to be the center of attention at dinner. But I loved ice cream cake, and so once a year I sucked up the attention during the whole "Happy Birthday" business in order to get the cake. Seriously, I could down that whole ice cream cake myself, given the chance. My cake of choice was vanilla, with chocolate cookie crumbles (which I, in my earlier years, had referred to as "ants") in the middle – and blue gel icing, which always read "Happy Birthday, Samantha!" My name is Samantha Scout Curtis, though nearly everyone calls me Scout. Mom was always the one who got the cake, hence the Samantha.

_______________________

That birthday was one of the most amazing days of my life. If I could choose a day to live in forever, I very well might pick that one. Maybe it is just because it is what I consider the last day of my "normal" life that I remember every detail of the day, but I can play it minute by minute like a movie in my mind even now.

Dad woke me up, which was a great start to the day, considering my normal school-day wake-up call was one of three teenaged brothers jumping on me from out of nowhere and torturing me into consciousness. Then Dad gave me a special gift, because he said twelve was a special birthday. It was a silver chain necklace with a starfish charm on it. It really meant a lot to me because it had a memory attached to it.

The past summer our family had gone to the beach in Texas for two weeks, to visit my Mom's brother's family. One day while Dad and I were alone walking on the beach we found a starfish. We sat down to look at it, and he told me a story about once when he and my mom were on their honeymoon. They were at the beach and they saw a starfish and they decided since it was the first star they had seen that day that they should make a wish. When I asked him what he had wished for, he looked at me, pulled me in toward him, and said "You, kiddo. I wished for you and your crazy brothers." He could be kind of sappy sometimes, for a big tough guy. We both made a wish on the new starfish, but I don't know what he wished for, because everybody knows if you don't keep your wish a secret, it won't come true.

What surprised me even more was that when I showed the necklace to Mom later that day, she seemed surprised, like she hadn't known about it. I always felt like Mom and Dad talked about everything. It made me feel like Dad had kept a secret from her just so he could have one with me. It felt special. I don't know – maybe she did know… I never got to ask. But every time I think about that starfish I feel like it is something just between my Dad and me.

I went to school as usual that day – school for me was no big deal. I liked seeing my friends, the social aspect of it -and luckily the work never seemed hard, but honestly, I would have rather been doing other things. It's a good thing the work _was_ easy, because with the amount of daydreaming and doodling in notebooks I do in school, if I actually needed to pay attention, I would be flunking out. As it was I got mostly A's and the occasional B… not so much for poor academics as lack of effort. Sometimes I just felt like I couldn't be bothered. Actually, all of us kids made good grades except for my middle brother Soda, but Soda was just Soda and school wasn't his thing. He could barely sit still in his seat, much less focus and pay attention. In Soda's world, there was just too much else going on in his mind to put much of his boundless energy into school.

After school, my neighbor Ben's older brother gave Ben and me a ride home, which was great since I hate riding the bus and I'm not allowed to walk home unless one of my brothers is with me, and both of them had other plans for after school. Ben is three months older than me and we have been friends since we were babies. His brother Kevin is a year younger than Darry, and they get along okay, but aren't as friendly as Ben and I.

When I got home, Mom and I went food shopping and she made my favorite, her special chicken pot pie for dinner. Darry got home from football practice early and while he and I played catch outside (he was always trying to teach me how to play REAL football but I just liked throwing and catching), my other brothers helped Mom with dinner.

After catch, I hung around the kitchen and watched Soda and my youngest brother Pony make mess after mess of things while poor Mom cleaned up after them. Finally she got tired of it and shooed the boys out the door. She wouldn't let me help cook, since it was my birthday, but she let me sit up on the counter and watch while we talked. We didn't talk about anything important – school, boys, my brothers… but it was nice to have Mom to myself, without Dad or the boys.

Dad was home by then and the boys sat around in the living room while he and Darry talked about the next night's game and what else was happening with the guys on the team. Pony and Soda were playing some sort of card game that they had just invented and each of them was accusing the other of cheating. This was a common problem, as Pony always played by the rules and Soda generally followed what one might call a 'loose interpretation' of said rules. Its funny those two get along so well, being so different.

Eventually we all sat down to dinner and for some reason we were all just in a strange mood. By the time dinner and cake was finished, we were all laughing and good-naturedly picking on each other, even Ponyboy, who is usually pretty reserved. At one point he made a joke and seemed shocked even with himself. We all stared at him and he turned beet red, which only made us all laugh more. I guess I am usually pretty quiet too, but there was just something that night that made all of us so comfortable and uninhibited.

In our neighborhood, this kind of family bonding was rare: most families had only one parent or if there were two parents they were never home anyway. Making ends meet was tough for everyone and in most families with two parents they both worked, but in our own family, Dad's income was going to have to be enough. He and Mom had jointly made a decision that she would stay home with us kids. I guess I never really realized how much that meant until later.

Thinking back to that night, it is also so weird that it was only our family at home. It was extraordinarily rare for there not to be at least one other person at our house at any given time besides our family. Usually it was either Soda's friend Steve or Pony's friend Johnny, but pretty much everyone on our side of town knew about my Mom and Dad's so-called "open door policy" and you just never knew who might show up. Sometimes we didn't even know the person 'til they appeared at the door, mentioning a name of a friend who had suggested our house as a place to find food, a couch, or just a listening ear. They were always welcomed and our Mom set a place for them at the table or brought out blankets for them to sleep on the couch.

I like most of the guys who hang around with my brothers, but I am so glad that night was just us. It almost feels like it was a gift for just Darry, Soda, Pony, and me. It was my first and only birthday that I remember with just my family. I don't even know where everyone else was that night, and I never thought to ask. I bet they would remember too, because I think all of their lives changed that night almost as much as ours did.

________________________

Oh, man, how I _can_ beat around the bush… In that way, I am so much like Pony. He just turned 14. His full name is Ponyboy. He can never just get to the point. My Dad was a creative guy when it came to naming his kids. Soda's whole name is Sodapop, though I never call him that. Dad wanted to name me Scout, and my mom wanted to name me after her dad, Samuel. I turned out to be a girl so I became Samantha Scout…a compromise.

I guess my Dad really won out in the end though, since nobody but my Mom ever called me anything but Scout, except in school, where they insist that legally I have to be called Samantha. Still, even there, only adults who don't know me call me Samantha. The people who do know me never call me Samantha unless I am in trouble. If I hear someone call the name Samantha in a normal tone of voice, I rarely realize they are talking to me.

Of my brothers, I get along best with Soda. He is sixteen and the most compassionate, caring, carefree person that I have ever met. Not to mention handsome. Darry and Pony are good looking but Soda is the one people stop to look at. He's my own brother but still, every once in a while, I am caught off- guard by how beautiful he is, not only physically, but with a personality to match. He just makes everyone around him smile, without even trying. Soda is like a movie star and a politician combined, but living a greaser's life, and totally satisfied with that. I trust him more than anyone that I know because I know he would never judge anyone in his world without giving them a fair shot at becoming his best friend. Soda loves everyone until they somehow give him reason not to (which usually is by hurting his family or friends since no one ever had any reason to hurt him; he is just too loveable.)

Back to my birthday… cake was finished, and presents were opened… the boys sat around the television watching something that was interesting to teenage boys, involving shooting and cars, while Mom and Dad came and sat with me in my room.

"Samantha, did you have a good birthday?"

I hugged my mom. "Perfect. Thanks for the shoes." I was just starting to play basketball on the high school team. I had been wearing a pair of Darry's old (very old, like from when he was 7) basketball shoes and had been dying for new shoes but didn't want to ask. Pretty much nobody in our family asked for anything outright from our parents – money was tight for everyone on the South side, but with four kids and one paycheck, even us kids understood about priorities.

I should have been in seventh grade but I had been promoted a grade early so I was in eighth grade. Me being in eighth grade meant I would have been in the same grade as Ponyboy, who, despite our two-year age difference, had been only a year ahead of me. He had missed some school as a young kid when he got really sick with some virus they couldn't identify and missed a lot of school. Luckily he had been put up a grade too, also due to his academics, so he was a freshman in high school. We didn't usually get along that well, so I was glad we weren't in the same grade.

Girls' basketball was a new sport in the high school, and in an effort to field a bigger team, they had decided to let the eighth graders play, as well. I guess growing up with a bunch of overly competitive boys had worked out for me, because it turned out that not only could I run fast, I could maneuver well too. Being only in eighth grade (and young at that) I had made starting guard on the high school team. Mom and Dad worried at first since I was a lot smaller than the other girls, and younger, but so far I was holding my own. And so far I was the top scorer on the team, much to Dad's delight.

"I knew I had another athlete in the family." Dad seemed really proud. Soda wasn't much into sports and Pony was not sure whether he wanted to be a runner or a smoker. The latter was preventing him from reaching his full ability in sports, though even as a smoker he was pretty good. Yet Darry and I were the real athletes in the family. I liked feeling like I was making my Dad proud. I was lucky to be able to play, only a year prior the high school had begun offering girls' basketball as a sport. It was starting to catch on in such a basketball-crazy state as Oklahoma.

"I'll be your basketball star," I promised my dad.

"I know, baby," said Dad. "I know you will." He stood up. "Love you, Scout. Be good for Darry tonight." He kissed me on top of my head.

I laughed. I was never trouble for Darry. Or for anyone else, for that matter. I'm pretty easygoing – starting trouble is not really my style. There are generally enough people around me causing trouble that that I usually get my share without even trying. My brothers were endlessly dragging me into their mischief, and being younger I usually followed along pretty willingly.

"Well, it's my job to say that! Maybe I should tell the boys not to give YOU any trouble?" He winked at me. He was not entirely kidding.

"Probably," I agreed. Mom laughed. Good night, Samantha, " she said, as she turned and walked into the living room to break up another argument between Soda and Ponyboy.

With that Dad tucked me into bed. "Happy Birthday, kiddo." Dad said, as he turned to leave.

"Good night," I said, as Dad walked out of my room and shut out the lights. "Happy Anniversary. Have fun." They deserved a night out to see a movie – honestly I couldn't remember the last time they had a night out together without at least one of us kids. I made a mental note to talk to my brothers about making them go out more often, without us. Who knows, maybe we'd send them out on a hot date, spark some romance and get another little brother or sister out of it! Lord knows, I mused, it might be nice to not have to be the baby anymore. (File under wishful thinking for a twelve-year old with parents turning the corner on forty.)

I was thinking about that when I fell asleep, smiling.

A little later I felt Darry come in and check on me. I was just barely awake as I felt him tuck in the sheets around me and pull the window down… it WAS getting cold.

"Dar…" I mumbled.

"Hey, birthday girl… Go to sleep!" He said

"Thanks… I was cold but I didn't know it yet," I said. At the time, that comment made perfect sense to me. Darry seemed to find it amusing, though, and laughed softly.

"Sleep tight Scout."

"'kay. 'Night." I turned and snuggled into my pillow. Man, it _was_ cold! Definitely uncharacteristically chilly for October in Oklahoma.

"'Night." He shut the door behind him.

**A/N: Thanks for reading my first chapter. Trying to fit in all the background was tricky, so I apologize if the organization of the chapter was a little off. Things stay in order a little more neatly from here on in. I hope you will stick with me.**

**Also, I know there is another Scout Curtis on fanfiction. I actually started writing my Scout before I read any of Erinskie's stories, and after I did come upon her (excellent) work I emailed her, she read some of what I had written, and she very graciously did not object to my Scout story being published also. I hope that you will keep reading my story and I assure you, you will see that our visions for the character are quite different. I appreciate kind, constructive reviews. Clearly I do not own any of the characters that already existed in the book, and I thank S.E. Hinton profusely for introducing such rich characters to expand upon. Happy reading!**


	2. The Doorbell

The doorbell awakened me. It was so foreign… No one we knew ever rung the doorbell, they just barged in. Or, if it was late at night, they tiptoed in and crashed on the couch. At our house, the doorbell meant either the cops or a stranger, neither of which was generally a good thing in our neighborhood. I couldn't even remember the last time I had heard it. My mind reached…

Maybe the time Soda's friend Steve gave our address as his own when he got arrested? He knew our parents wouldn't beat him up like his dad would for getting picked up for drunken and disorderly conduct at the grocery store, of all places… My parents were annoyed at the time but forgiving, and he slept it off in Soda's bed. The bell had awakened me that time, too. I didn't remember feeling scared then, though - I felt scared now.

I sat up straight in my bed. I grabbed my alarm clock and pulled it close to my face so I could read it. 2:38 a.m. Something was wrong. I could feel it. I felt like there was no air left in my lungs.

Earlier, half asleep, I had heard Steve come over and he and Soda go out… were they in trouble? Steve again? He was my least favorite of all my brothers' friends, for some reason I couldn't quite isolate. Silently I slipped out of bed. The doorbell rang again.

I could hear Darry cursing in his room, and then I heard Soda's voice... I felt confused reassurance. It wasn't Soda. Then I heard Pony's voice answering Soda. My brothers were all here…safe.

I heard Darry pad down the hallway toward the door. His footsteps were heavy, unmistakable. "Coming!" He sounded annoyed and sleepy. Now whoever it was that had rung the bell was knocking. Suddenly it occurred to me that my parents weren't getting up. Something was very wrong.

"Mr. Curtis?" I heard a strange voice.

______________________

I peeked out my door. Darry was talking to a state trooper at the front door. His body looked rigid and his voice was strange, agitated. Soda stood in the middle of the hallway behind him. I spied Pony in his doorway, transfixed on Darry and the cop. Everything about this scene was surreal and movie-like. I couldn't even tell if I was awake. Every muscle in my body seemed frozen.

A breeze came through the open door and I shivered, wearing only one of Dad's old t-shirts and a pair of cut off sweatpants. Darry had flipped on the outside light and the officers were bathed in an eerie light, while inside the hallway it was still dark. I felt fear as I never have before. I stared and listened. I could feel my heart beating and it amazed me that my brothers couldn't hear it too. It was deafening.

"I'm sorry"…I heard the trooper say. I only caught pieces of the conversation over the pounding of my own heart. "…dead on scene" "…drunk driver." "Knew them personally… highly respected." Then, finally, "Very sorry for your loss." A year ago I might have been unfamiliar with that phrase, but the past August a friend of mine's brother had been shot and killed and that was the phrase my mom had told me to say to the family at the wake. "It's what you say when someone dies," she had told me.

Darry was silent. Then: "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir. I'm very sorry."

I was thankful for the doorframe I was leaning against, because I couldn't even feel my feet on the floor. I closed my eyes.

This can't be happening. This can't really be happening.

I couldn't imagine anything that could be said that would confuse and frighten me more, until the cop added,

"Social services have been called. They'll be coming for the minors."

I thought I might fall down. I opened my eyes and saw Pony cover his face with his hands. Soda just stared. Social Services was a well-known entity on the South Side. Our own parents had even called them once, when Pony's friend Johnny had been beaten up so badly by his own parents that we had to take him to the hospital. Somehow they couldn't find cause to remove him from his house, though, which was what we had hoped for. I really had nothing against them, but Social Services was for kids with bad parents, bad situations. Not families like us… our parents loved us! Nobody was beating us up. We were happy. We had food on the table every night, a roof over our heads... We did get in fights sometimes, but not like the hateful, hurtful ones that went on at Johnny Cade's house. Money was tight, and Soda had caught hell from Dad for coming home drunk once last summer, but… I struggled to understand what was going on. My brothers stood like wax figures in the hall. It felt like ten minutes passed with no sound or movement except the horribly loud beating of my heart.

"What? NO." Darry broke the silence. His eyes were wide with disbelief and his voice was not his own. "Nobody is taking them. I'm nineteen. I'm the legal guardian! My parents had a will!" To this day I am amazed that Darry knew this – I can't imagine there ever having been a conversation between my parents and Darry about their will, but apparently there must have been. Dad had been the kind of guy who liked to cover all his bases.

The cop did not answer. I could see his nameplate, clear as day. BRIGGS, it read. There was another younger cop behind him who looked like he would rather have been anywhere but on our front porch at that particular moment. I sometimes wonder if we were his official police training in how to notify a bunch of unsuspecting kids that their lives had been forever altered, and that they had lost both of their parents in a split second. He was observing my epiphany, I guess. Was he out notifying some other poor kids somewhere the next night, having completed his 'training'? At least the cops get to walk away and forget about it afterward. Or does BRIGGS (and that baby cop) still see our faces that night every time he comes across a deadly car wreck? I'd like to know. Why do I even wonder about things like this? Seriously, sometimes I feel like I should have been Pony's twin. He's the one who's always thinking about this kind of stuff… We never talk about it, though.

At the time, the silence was too heavy for me to handle. I looked around and nobody else looked likely to break it this time, so I had to. It felt like if I didn't say something we would all be stuck in that terrible moment of silence and confusion forever.

"Darry?" My voice was barely a whisper. I heard a noise but was not completely sure whether or not I had actually made it. I didn't know what was going on. I felt sick, dizzy. Wake me up, I begged silently. Let this be like one of Pony's nightmares. Pony was a terrible sleeper, and was always having nightmares that caused him to wake up screaming. Please. I glanced at my brothers, the cops… nobody had moved. Still frozen in time.

Louder now, I called out. "DARRY??!"

All three brothers, as well as the two cops, seemed shocked to hear me. Clearly nobody had noticed I was there, though by this point I was almost completely in the hall, still hanging on to the doorframe for dear life.

Darry turned and looked at me like he had never seen me before.

"Scout…" his voice was cracking. "Soda…can you…" he looked back over his other shoulder and gestured as he and Soda had some sort of silent conversation I didn't understand, or didn't want to.

"Scout…" Soda's voice was full of a weird mix of desperation and horror. "Come with me, baby." I looked at him questioningly. I had never seen this expression in his eyes. Sadness? Why was there a cop in our doorway? Why couldn't Darry just talk to me? I looked confusedly at Darry. I was a tangled ball of emotions. Disbelief, fear, pain, and denial.

"Scout, go with Soda! " Darry said sharply. Now I was frozen. Why was he yelling at me? I would go, but seriously, I was scared now that something was gonna happen to Darry. Was he in trouble with these cops? It seemed to me like he had talked back to them. I didn't have any personal experience with the cops but from what I gathered from the guys in the gang, saying no to a cop was just asking for trouble. Darry had said no. I heard it. And besides that, my parents were DEAD? They were just a second ago sitting on my bed! I thought for a minute that I might actually throw up from how dizzy I felt. I think I realized at this point that I was not so much unable to understand what was going on as I was unwilling to believe it. My mind was racing. I knew my parents were dead but was trying every tactic I could think of to try and change that truth. I started a silent mantra. This is not possible. This is not possible. THIS. IS. NOT. POSSIBLE. I could not begin to process what was happening in my own hallway in any way that made sense at all.

I looked at Soda. Darry wanted me to go with him? He looked as petrified as I was. He came over and stood next to me, attempting to take my hand. Not even knowing why, because I love Soda so much, I pulled it away. I hid behind him, and slowly worked my arms around his waist. I grabbed his shirt with both hands and deliberately transferred my grip from the doorframe to my brother.

Darry turned to the cops. "Are they coming for them now?" he asked.

"No sir, not yet. They're waiting on the paperwork"

"Tell them not to bother. Everybody is staying here." Darry suddenly sounded like my Dad. "I know for a fact that I am the legal guardian. It's in the will."

I actually felt, in the air, the change as Darry went from being our big brother to being our guardian. It was as though our entire house had shifted on its foundation. Yet nobody seemed to notice but me. And maybe Darry; he must have felt it. But he wasn't reacting. I shivered, either from the thought or the wind. They were equally chilling. Soda pulled me closer.

Darry didn't even turn to look at us - he was still staring into the face of the cop. BRIGGS.

"Soda, Pony, and Scout, go into my bedroom and wait." He did not turn around. I had never heard Darry speak in that tone, ever. To anyone; especially us. I slid out from behind Soda, and looked at Ponyboy, then back at Soda. The three of us stared blankly at each other. Pony budged but I didn't feel capable of moving. It was like one of those dreams where all of a sudden your legs weigh a hundred pounds each and you can't even lift them off the floor. I must have looked pretty pathetic because after a second Soda picked me up and Pony walked ahead of us through the kitchen to Darry's room at the very back of the house. Until last year it had been Dad's workroom. As we entered, I think we were all probably processing the same things…

We were never allowed in Darry's bedroom. Even Mom and Dad gave him his privacy and enforced the "off-limits" rule once Darry started college and wanted his space. The door wasn't ever locked but we knew that Darry would take us to the cleaners if we ever went in. We sat on the bed and stared at the wall with the knowledge that for Darry to order us in here, he must have meant business. The sad thing is, I know we had all been dying to get in there to see what all the fuss about his "private room" was about but now that we were in there we were too scared to care.

Never, ever, that I could remember, had Darry bossed us all to do something and had all three of us immediately comply without argument. I wasn't usually the one to give him any sass, but normally either Pony or Soda (or both) had something to say about it when he told us what to do. Pony and Soda just don't like to be told what to do, especially by Darry. Though in the end they usually did do what he said.

And, most worrisome (to me at least)… What was going to happen to Darry out there - alone with two cops, trying to deal with being told our parents were dead and that his brothers and sister were being taken away? I know I was silently praying that, even though _I_ wasn't, he would hold it together. Darry didn't lose his temper very often back then, but when he did, you'd better get out of his way.

__________

I, personally, definitely wasn't holding it together. The minute Soda had picked me up, I had started bawling shamelessly and hadn't stopped. It was a weird cry, all-encompassing, as though every cell in my body was bursting at the membrane with sorrow. It was like no cry I had never experienced before. Maybe, just being twelve, I had never actually experienced pure sadness. My emotions seemed to know that this was more than just a skinned knee or hurt feelings.

I looked at Pony and he was crying, too. No noise was coming out of him but tears were streaming down his cheeks and he seemed unable to focus. He looked away from me the minute our eyes met. I couldn't see Soda's face but my head was against his chest and I could feel him breathing irregularly. I couldn't tell if it was his tears falling on my side or my own. All I know is that he was holding me tighter than I have ever been held by anyone, even Darry, and rather than being hurt or scared, I wanted him to never let go. I could already feel so many things flying away from me, I wanted to hold on tight to everything I could. Suddenly I had a vision of Darry, at his part-time roofing job, watching a tornado approaching and tearing away at all the shingles that he had just laid. He was trying to hold them down against the impending storm. That was exactly how I felt. A storm was ripping off my shingles. Yet as terrified as I was, and as sad as I was about all that was lost, I was fighting with all I had to keep what was left intact.

"Soda, maybe you should go out there." Pony, between silent crying gasps, was suddenly the voice of reason. "He might do something."

We could hear tense voices from the front of the house. Darry was normally even-tempered around cops and parents, but none of us had any idea what he would do in this situation. He used to be just our brother. Suddenly he was… something else.

"Scout, stay with Pony." Soda slid me off his lap and toward Pony on the bed. He moved towards me and I clung to him, not wanting to let go. This was strange; Pony and I were rarely affectionate compared to me and my other brothers. I guess it was because we were the closest in age. We usually quarreled rather than hugged. But he took me in his arms, pulled me close and pulled me in to his chest. Just like Soda had. I felt like everyone was suddenly assuming a new role in the family, except for me. Darry became Dad, Soda became Darry, and Pony became Soda… Who would I be now? I felt tiny and lost. It felt like if Pony had not been holding me, I would have spun off into that very tornado I had just been imagining.

"Pony…" I said, and trailed off. I don't even know what I wanted to say. I never finished my sentence and he never asked. Maybe that was in itself a complete thought. Maybe he knew what I wanted to say even if I didn't. I don't know.

As Soda went to the bedroom door we heard the front door close loudly and Darry's footsteps coming toward us. Soda backpedaled and sat back down, trying to look like he had never stood up to leave in the first place. Like we never doubted Darry dealing with the cops. He grabbed for my hand. The door swung open and Darry walked in, stone-faced.

_____________

If I hadn't known that it would be Darry walking in, I swear I would not have recognized him. To this day I can't find the vocabulary to describe how he appeared. Stricken. Devastated. Petrified. Broken. All of these words describe a piece of what I saw in his face but they are all missing something. There may not even be a word for it. I had never before seen and hope to God that I will never again see the emotion that I saw on my brother Darry's face that night as he went, in a split second, from carefree college kid to what equated to single parent of three kids. I am sure that until that moment he had, regardless of his age, still considered himself to _be_ one of us kids. I could not even imagine how this conversation would go. I didn't want to. I didn't want to _have_ this conversation. Yet I knew it had to happen.

Darry walked in silently and sat on the end of the bed, facing the wall. The three of us turned to him but his back was to us. I don't know why he couldn't look at us – maybe he had seen my shock at his appearance when he came in? Maybe he was protecting me, or us? Maybe he just didn't want to cry in front of us. Pride was a big thing on our side of town, and you just didn't cry in front of anyone. Soda and Pony I could remember seeing cry at least a few times, but Darry… Darry I couldn't remember ever seeing cry. Maybe by the time I was old enough to notice, he was old enough to know how to hide it, but truly, I don't think Darry cried much, if at all. And I didn't know if he was crying now. His voice was different, but even. Meanwhile, Soda, Pony, and I were sobbing shamelessly.

"Mom and Dad were killed in a car crash tonight."

Nobody answered. What could we even say? We already knew. Darry saying it out loud didn't necessarily make it more or less real. In a weird way, while I thought this new reality might fill the room and suffocate us for lack of air, it didn't. It just hovered there, over us.

"They want to split us up. They don't think I can take care of you."

"No, Darry. You told them no, right?" I would have expected it to be Soda saying this, but surprisingly it was Pony. Usually Ponyboy doesn't react to stuff right away, he likes to have time to think about things.

Darry finally turned around to face us. His eyes were red but there were no tears coming out. "Legally, you can stay with me. I know it. Dad talked to me about it in case… in case something like this ever happened."

Again, never in a million years would I have imagined Darry and Dad having that conversation- I thought their deepest talks were about football or girls - but I thank God they did. As much as my life has changed, I can't even imagine what would have happened to my brothers and I if we had actually been split up that night.

"So its OK… they won't split us up?" This time it was Soda.

"It's up to you." Darry said. "You guys decide. Whatever you three want will happen. I'll make it happen." He was totally believable. I knew he meant what he said.

Still, I couldn't even believe he was asking us. Did he really think we would want to leave him? Each other? Our home?

Everything was crystal clear in my mind.

"I want to stay, Darry," I said, sobbing. "With you. Here."

"How could you even ask us, Darry? We stay together. No matter what." Soda was just as shamelessly talking through his bawling.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Pony?" Darry asked

.

"What?" Pony looked at us blankly. I am not sure he had heard anything we said. That's Pony, always lost in his own thoughts.

"With Mom and Dad gone, do you want me to take care of you or someone else?" he pointed this question directly at Pony.

Pony looked at Darry like he had been struck. His eyes were red-rimmed but pure green, greener than I have ever seen them. The rest of us all have blue or brown eyes, like Mom and Dad did. He hates that.

"You." He was still crying too. "I want us to stay together."

Darry faced us all. "Look, nothing has to happen tonight. You can think about it and change your mind." He stood up.

Darry suddenly seemed stronger to me, stronger than he had been when talking to the cops. Had he been afraid that we wouldn't choose him? This was Darry, our brother, whom we loved and admired – and trusted. Had he really thought we would want to be with someone else – a stranger - instead of him? My already broken heart was breaking again, for him. Didn't he know how we felt about him? I suddenly ached for him, as the oldest… he didn't get the overt affection I did, as the baby. Everybody was always making me feel loved. I tried to remember the last time I had told Darry I loved him. I couldn't.

I scrambled across the bed to him. "I know Darry. I know now. I want to stay with you. I'm not going to change my mind."

I stood on the bed so that I was face to face with him and we stared at each other. I knew I couldn't talk anymore without crying, so I tried to tell him with my eyes that I had faith in him, that I truly trusted him to keep us safe and together. Anything else we could work out. I don't know if he got my message. He looked as though he was crying, but still, there were no tears.

"Me too." Pony and Soda said almost at the same time.

I felt Darry take a deep breath. His mouth opened to say something but then closed again for a minute. Finally he said. "Everything is gonna change. You guys know that, right?" He sounded pained. "Nothing's gonna be the same."

"But we'll still be together," Soda said.

"We'll be together," Darry said, sat down, and lay back on the bed, pulling me down too. All of us pretty much just lay back where we were on the bed and reached out and found each other. At some point someone had the sense to turn out the light. I cried myself to sleep, on Soda's chest, holding Pony's hand. I slept terribly, as I assume the others did. As for Darry – I am not sure he slept at all. Every time I awoke and wondered where I was and suddenly remembered what had happened, he was there to comfort me. In various stages of sleep I heard him doing the same for both Pony and Soda. "It'll be alright." I heard him saying to us, over and over. I wondered if he believed it. I wondered if I did. He knew what we wanted, and he swore he would make it work.

Not until months later did it occur to me that we had never thought to ask him what _he_ wanted. And there had been nobody there that night to reassure _him_ that everything would be alright.


	3. The Morning

Sometime during the night it had started to rain. When I awoke, a cold wind was blowing into the room through the partially open window. I remembered Darry coming in and shutting my window the night before, how he had laughed at my stupid comment. I felt like none of us might ever laugh again. I looked around and saw Soda and Pony next to me on the bed. Darry was gone.

I slipped out from under Pony's arm and walked over to close the window. Turning back, I realized I didn't want to leave the room. I wanted to stay in there forever. Darry's room… it was safe. If I went out into the kitchen, it would be too real, that Mom and Dad were not there, that everything would be different now. I stood in the middle of the room, looking at Pony and Soda asleep on the bed. It occurred to me the irony of the fact that on the night something terrible _had_ actually happened, Pony hadn't had a nightmare. I would have known. His nightmares always woke all of us up. Their sleeping expressions betrayed no emotion. They didn't look like two kids who had just been told their parents were dead. I took a good long stare, knowing the next time I saw them that peaceful expression would be gone – and probably for a good long while, too.

I thought about crawling back in with them but suddenly it occurred to me that Darry was somewhere alone. After hearing him comforting us all night, I was worried about him being alone, for some reason. It didn't seem fair. Not that there was much I could say to comfort him, but at the very least I could be there. I willed my legs to unglue themselves from the floor, and surprisingly, they complied. I slipped out of the room and closed the door quietly, not wanting to rob my brothers of a few more hours of peace.

____________

Darry wasn't in the kitchen, or the living room either. I finally found him out on the front porch. He turned when he heard me open the squeaky screen door. He looked terrible.

"Hey, Dar."

"Hey Scout. The boys' sleepin' still?"

"Yeah."

"That's good. I don't imagine they'll be doin' much of that for awhile. Especially Pony."

"Probably not." I imagined Darry and I probably wouldn't either.

"C'mere." He held out his hand to me. I walked over and sat on the arm of the old couch we had out on the porch. Steve had picked it up off a corner somewhere and brought it out to our house for the boys to sit on when they smoked. Nobody was allowed to smoke inside our house. Pony, Johnny, and Steve particularly spent a lot of time on the porch on the couch. Darry, never a smoker, was just sitting there, staring out at the rain. Sitting on the arm, I was taller than him and I leaned my head over and rested it on his shoulder. We sat there for a while without saying anything, just thinking. I don't know about him, but I was thinking so much it hurt.

"What do we do now, Darry?" Finally I asked him the question that had been brewing in my head.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what happens now? About a funeral and stuff. Who takes care of that?" I had no idea how things worked when someone died, or who did what. He didn't answer right away. The next question I didn't want to ask but I had to, it was haunting me. "Dar, where are they? You know… their… bodies?" I started crying again. I truly thought there would not have been a single tear left in me after last night, but I guess there was. The thought of my parents' lifeless bodies was too much.

Darry pulled me off the arm into his lap on the couch. He looked at me like he was deciding whether or not to tell me what he knew. He drew in a deep breath.

"They're at the funeral home. I have to go there today to set up things for the funeral. The cops gave me the number last night and I called this morning. I might take Soda with me, depending how he is."

"Oh."

"I was thinking maybe Pony could write the obituary. He's the best writer."

"Yeah." Pony _was_ good with words. Without anyone else knowing, he had written a few English papers for me. Not because I couldn't, but because he actually liked writing them, and I didn't. I didn't know how keen he'd be on writing our folks' obituary though… but he was the logical choice.

We just sat there for a while, until finally I said "Dar?"

"What?"

"I'm cold." I had wandered out in just my makeshift pajamas, and somehow, overnight, autumn had arrived. This was no longer the humid rain of summer, it was the cold rain of fall.

"Yeah, me too. Let's go in. I was just sittin' out here waitin' for the boys to show up. When you all aren't in school they'll know something is goin' on."

Right. It was Friday. We should have been in school. I tried to block out the thought of how Mom would have been on our case if we weren't up by now. When I had passed the kitchen clock it had read 7:15. For most kids on our side of town, skipping school was no big deal, but everyone in the gang knew we weren't allowed to skip. With just one of us out, they would think we were sick, but with all of us out, they'd be worried. It occurred to me that it was going to fall on Darry's shoulders to break the news to the rest of the guys who practically lived with us – our "gang," I guess you would call it, though we weren't an organized gang like some groups of guys on the South Side. Nobody else knew about our Mom and Dad yet, I realized. The accident would have happened too late to make the morning paper.

Darry stood up and slid me off his lap onto the porch floor. It was freezing beneath my feet. The screen door creaked as we went inside and I opened the coat closet door looking for something warm. The first thing I saw was Dad's winter hunting jacket… I flashed back to a winter day with Dad, the two of us in the backyard, him getting ready to go on a hunting trip with the boys, and showing me how to use his crossbow. I wasn't even strong enough to pull back the string, and Dad was laughing at me. Dad always gave me some one-on-one time before he took off with my brothers for a few days. I blinked my eyes shut hard to erase the memory. I couldn't deal with that just now. I grabbed the coat and padded into my bedroom to get some socks. Last time I was in here, I thought, my mom and dad were alive.

STOP IT, I told myself. Just keep going. I grabbed the socks, turned, and walked out the door, quietly closing the door behind me.

_______________

Darry was sitting on the living room couch. He didn't have the TV on, which was weird. The TV usually went on with the first person up in our house and off with the last person to bed. It was such normal background noise that we never actually heard it, only noted the absence of it. It was disturbingly silent.

I sat down on the couch. Darry looked at me in Dad's hunting jacket but didn't say anything. I knew he understood. He almost looked like he was gonna cry.

We just sat there, for the longest time. I'm sure he was thinking about what he had to do next – the funeral home and all of that. Pony and I would not be expected to deal with much of that stuff… being the babies of the family meant we would be left at home. I didn't feel like a kid then, though. My mind was heavy with more grown-up thoughts than I would have liked. I leaned against him and felt my eyes getting heavy.

After a half hour or so, we heard footsteps on the porch. I could feel Darry tense up with the anticipation of the conversation yet to come. I'll help him, I thought, but silently prayed for Soda or Pony to wake up and come out so I wouldn't have to. No such luck.

The door banged open. "Hey y'all!" It was Two-Bit, one of the guys from the gang. He was always happy. He saw us on the couch and quipped, "Y'all playin' sick to get outta school? I'm surprised at you! You too, Dar? No college today? You got a game tonight, Big Guy!" Darry was way bigger than the rest of us and they always picked on him for it. Hercules, Atlas, Superman, Hulk, Jolly Green Giant, he had heard them all.

I don't know what our expressions were but Two-Bit knew immediately that something was very wrong and he shut up quick. Maybe it was the fact that Darry and I both looked like hell and I was wearing Dad's hunting jacket and had just barely stopped crying.

He looked first at Darry then at me. He must have seen nothing good in either of our faces, because he looked back at Darry, with the most serious face I have ever seen on Two-Bit Mathews.

"What's wrong, Darry?" he asked. He actually looked scared. It was terrifying to me. Two- Bit was always happy!

Darry didn't answer right away and Two-Bit looked at him with increased concern.

"Sit down." Two-Bit immediately sank down into Dad's armchair, directly behind him. Nobody dared argue with Darry except his own brothers. Seriously, not even me, back then.

"What? Darry, what is it?" He looked genuinely panicked now.

"There was a car accident last night," Darry started. I grabbed his arm, as his voice was cracking. Two-Bit waited.

"Our Mom and Dad…" he couldn't say it. "They…." Two-Bit looked at me.

"They died, Two-Bit." I broke down the moment the words left my mouth. This was me _helping_ Darry? Good help I was, I thought. Darry then pulled me toward him so hard it hurt. I didn't have the heart to tell him to ease up though…. I hurt so much anyway; it hardly mattered. I felt like everything in me was already broken.

Two-Bit looked incredulous and directed his gaze towards us, but actually at neither of us.

"No." He said, softly. "No way." He put his face in his hands.

After a silence, Darry spoke up, barely a whisper. " It's true. We didn't want to believe it either. But it's true, Two-Bit. They're gone." He was silent for a second then repeated, "They're gone."

"Oh my God." Two-Bit had probably cared for them almost as much as we did. Lord knows; he spent enough time at our house. Our parents had treated him like one of us, practically. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He looked at us. He looked so serious that I had to look away. This was a Two-Bit I had never seen before. It scared me. Everything was already so screwed up. Two-Bit couldn't be changed too… I closed my eyes. I couldn't bear it.

"What can I do?" The kid might have been a tough hood, but somehow he knew exactly the right thing to say at that moment.

"Do you think… Could you tell the rest of the guys for us?" Darry actually sounded relieved.

"Ok, Dar." Two-Bit had taken a moment before answering. Not a fun job, I thought. I wondered if the guys would even believe him at first. But I don't think even Two-Bit would have ever thought to joke about our parents dying. They were all likely to be devastated. I could imagine their reactions. Dally would be angry, Johnny sad, and Steve bitter. Our parents were like everybody's parents. I silently thanked Two-Bit for being the great person that he is. He is unfathomably, sometimes annoyingly positive, but in a negative situation, that can work in your favor. He had taken on a job none of us wanted. Anything to give Darry a break, I figured. Two-Bit would never say no to Darry. Really, none of us would.

"I have to go to the funeral home and make the arrangements later. Could one of you guys come stay with Pony and Scout?" Normally I would have protested at the thought of being babysat but I actually preferred company at this point to Pony and me being home in our silent house. We would drown in a pool of our own tears. We were way too emotional to be left home alone now. Good thinking, Darry, I thought. He understood Pony and me better than Pony thought. If Pony had been awake he would have fought Darry to no end to get out of a babysitter, but then again, maybe not. Everything was different now, I remembered.

"What time?" Two-Bit asked. This struck me as slightly funny, despite the situation. Two-Bit never did well with schedules. He was eternally late. People tell him the hour before he should be somewhere and he is still late. It gets us mad. I suppose if he was choosing a time to become reliable, this was a good one.

"One," Darry said. He had told me his appointment was at two. I said nothing.

"I'll be here," he said, and with that, he pushed himself up out of Dad's chair and walked straight out the door. I heard him curse as he walked down the porch steps. He loved our Mom and Dad so much too, I knew. I would have gone after him but Darry was still trying to fight back tears and I wanted to stay with him. I knew Two-Bit would be able to find Steve and probably Johnny, too, at school, but Lord only knows where Dallas might be on any given day. I did not envy Two-Bit's mission but I was glad that Darry wouldn't have to do it.


	4. The Notifications

Mere minutes after the door slammed behind Two-Bit, Soda appeared in the living room door. He saw Darry and me on the couch and came over and basically lay on top of us. That's a typical Soda hug. He's like hot fudge on a sundae – he just melts all over you. Luckily he's not huge like Darry.

None of us seemed to know how to greet each other, so we all just stayed silent. Finally Soda muttered "This so sucks."

"Yeah."

"I know." Darry and I responded at the same time.

"Who was here?" Soda asked. He had heard us talking.

"Two-Bit. He's gonna tell the gang."

Soda looked at Darry. "Good," he said. I think we all knew that Darry's talk with us last night was about all he could handle. We didn't want him having to tell the gang about all this too.

"Pony still sleeping?" Darry asked.

"Yeah. I didn't wanna wake him," Soda said.

"Good. I have to go to the funeral home at two," Darry said, looking at Soda.

"I'll come with…" Soda said, with a lot of thought. I know he didn't want Darry to have to go alone…knowing he needed support, and as the next oldest, he stepped up. Though I am sure he did _not_ want to go, at all.

"What do we have to do there? Soda asked.

"I'm not really sure. Obviously, I've never done this before."

"Right." I knew what Soda was thinking though – Would he be able to handle whatever they had to do there? I personally was wondering, would they have to see our parents, dead? I didn't know how I would feel about that. As much as I didn't want to see them dead, the thought of not seeing them one more time seemed just as bad. I had a million questions that I wanted to ask Darry about what was gonna happen, but I decided to wait until he came back from the appointment and then maybe he would know more.

"I have to call Uncle Pat." Patrick is my mom's brother. It was his family we stayed with every summer when we went to Texas. Other than those two weeks every summer, we kids didn't see much of him and his family (he had four kids too, the oldest only being a year older than Ponyboy) but he and mom talked on the phone at least once a month or so. Other than Uncle Pat, there was no other family to notify. Both sets of grandparents had died within the past few years, and Dad had been an only child. I could see the dread in Darry's face as he walked into the kitchen and took out Mom's phone book to find Uncle Pat's number.

After a few minutes I could hear him dial, and I heard "Hello… Aunt Carrie? This is Darrel. Sorry to be so short, but is Uncle Pat there?"

Soda got up and walked into the kitchen with Darry. I was glad, because I didn't want him to have to be in there alone, but this was a phone conversation I would rather not hear. I got off the couch and wandered into Soda and Pony's room. I didn't want to go into my room. I remembered yesterday morning, and Dad giving me the necklace. I felt under my t-shirt and held it in my hand. Tears welled up in my eyes. I sat down on Soda and Pony's bed and cried. I don't know how long I sat there, but by the time Soda came in I wasn't crying anymore, I was just laying on the bed staring at the wall. He stopped when he saw me there, then went around to the other side of the bed and sat down so he was facing me.

"How'd it go on the phone?" I asked. I was still staring at the wall, looking through Soda.

"Not good. Darry could hardly even talk. He's gonna call him back when we know the details. Pat wants to come up for the funeral."

"Oh, " I said. I guess that makes sense, I thought. I had never really considered before that Mom and Uncle Pat's relationship was pretty much the same as mine with any of my brothers. They had a shared childhood. I shuddered at the thought of ever having to attend any of my brothers' funerals.

"Where's Darry now?" I felt a need to account for everyone left.

"In the shower. Pony is awake."

"How's he?"

"The same as all of us, I guess. Pretty much a mess."

"Yeah…. Soda?"

"What?" He slid down onto the bed so now we were face to face.

"I'm…I don't know. I feel like I'm sad – I _know_ I'm sad, but I'm scared too. And I don't know of what. The worst thing that could even happen already did, so why do I feel so scared?"

"I don't know. But I know what you mean. Darry won't ever say it but I bet he feels it too."

It didn't comfort me to think that Darry was feeling scared like I was. Who was I supposed to depend on?

Soda seemed to sense my thoughts. "Darry will keep it together. Don't worry about that, Scout. Darry will fight for us. We won't get split up."

"I know." I did know, but still I was scared. I decided that maybe it would be best for all of us if we just decided to pretend we weren't scared. I decided to try.

Pony wandered into the room and sat at the end of the bed, between me and Soda. His eyes were red and the bags under his eyes made it clear that he had not seen much sleep.

"This sucks," he said. Soda and I didn't answer. I guess we figured it was pretty obvious we felt the same.

We just sat in silence for a while. I had a feeling there would be quite a bit of silence in our house for a while, which was just weird. Our house was always loud. I was tempted to go out and turn on the TV just for some background noise. But I didn't feel like moving.

"Shove over," Pony said, and I crawled over toward Soda. He slid in next to me and pulled up the covers over us. For a split second I felt safe between the two of them but the reality of it all was just too much and I started to cry again. Pony put his arm around me and I know he was crying too… Soda just rubbed my back and pulled my hair back over my ears. For the first time since the news, I felt the full ache of our loss. I wanted my parents so badly it hurt. "Why them?" I whispered through my tears.

"I don't know, baby." Soda laid his hand flat against my cheek. My tears soaked his hand. Pony just lay there and sobbed.

After a while Darry came in, smelling of soap and shaving cream. Just the way all the men in my family smelled when they came out of the shower. I wondered if for the rest of my life I would feel sad when I smelled that shaving cream Dad had used.

"Soda, we're gonna have to leave in a half hour. Get a shower."

"Where you going?" Pony asked Darry.

"We have to take care of the funeral home stuff."

"I wanna go." Pony said. If he had thought about it, I think he would have realized that actually, he _didn't_ want to go, but he was always jealous whenever Darry and Soda went somewhere without him. Asking to go was like a reflex with him.

"No Pony," Darry was gentle, but firm. "I need you to stay here with Scout." Pony looked like he was thinking about arguing but changed his mind. "Also, we want you to write the obituary. You'll do the best job."

Pony looked shocked and honored at the same time. He knew he had to be the one to write it as much as we all did. "OK," he finally said quietly. I could tell he was already thinking about what he would write.

"I know you don't want to get up, Soda, but you can't come with me looking like that," Darry said. I looked at Soda. He did look a mess. A handsome mess, but a mess all the same. He slid out from under the sheets and went over to the dresser, pulling out some clean clothes and heading for the bathroom. Darry took his place on the bed. As he took Pony and me in, I couldn't imagine what he was thinking. Suddenly he was my parent, practically. An nineteen year old guy with a twelve year old kid. I am an orphan, I realized for the first time… and my brothers, all orphans themselves, will have to raise me. It was unreal. I felt like I could already see the burden of responsibility in his eyes.

"This is going to be hard on all of us, but hardest on you two," Darry said quietly. "I can't possibly take their place. I'm gonna do the best I can." He seemed apologetic.

Pony looked at me. "We know, Darry. We trust you."

Darry stood up. "Two-Bit's coming back over while me and Soda are gone. They'll probably want that obituary tomorrow, Pone." Darry was walking out our door.

"OK."

Soda came back in the room smelling just as Darry had. I closed my eyes and imagined it was my Dad. My hand went to my necklace. I wished on that starfish that none of this was happening but when I opened my eyes, it was still Soda standing there and Pony and me on the bed. I heard our porch door slam and heard the voices of Two-Bit and Soda's buddy Steve. Soda went out into the living room. "I can't believe it," I heard Steve say. "I still can't believe it, man." I knew he was hugging Soda. Two-Bit was talking to Darry. "My Mom said to tell you she was sending over some food." Two-Bit's mom was nice, but a little bit scattered. Our parents had probably worried about him more than his own Mom did.

"OK. We'll be back." Darry said.

"Where's the kids at?" asked Steve. I just didn't like him. Most of the time he acted like more of a kid than I did.

"They're in my room. They need some sleep. Keep it quiet in here." Those were words my parents would be saying, I thought, not Soda. Soda was usually the one being told to keep it down.

I had no desire to go out and see the guys, so I pulled the covers up over me and rolled over. I think Pony was already asleep. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind of everything. It must have worked because the next thing I remember is waking up to Dallas Winston yelling in the living room.

"What??? Why the hell didn't somebody tell me???! Jesus Fucking Christ!"

"Dally, the kids are sleeping. Keep it down." It was Two-Bit. "I looked all over for you this morning to tell you. I couldn't find you." I looked and saw that Pony wasn't in the bed anymore. I sat up and saw him at his desk, looking at me and listening to Dally. He's writing the obituary, I thought.

"Jesus! Who the hell was driving the other car that hit them?" It seemed strange that I had not thought of this. Maybe anger at that person would feel better than the terrible loss I was feeling. I considered it.

"He died too." I wondered how Two-Bit had known this. I guess word had probably started to get around town. Our parents were pretty well-known and liked, from Darry's sports and all of us kids' activities. I guess hating that person was pretty useless, then, since he was already dead.

"Fucking Christ." This was Dally's best emotion, anger. He would never show the sadness that I knew he was feeling, he would channel it all into pure, raw anger. It was just who he was. Usually he watched his mouth in our house because my Mom was around but now there was no such restraint.

I looked at Pony. I wasn't sure if us going out into the living room would help or hurt the situation. He shrugged at me. I decided to chance it. Dally probably wouldn't explode with me in the room. Without me, anything was possible. Climbing out of bed, I realized that I was still in my pajamas from the night before, and Dad's jacket. Oh well. As I opened the door, all three guys turned to look at me.

"You OK, kid?" Two-Bit looked concerned but like he would have no idea what to do if I actually needed something. Serious situations were not his forte.

"Yeah… I just heard Dally." Both Steve and Two-Bit sent Dally a glance that said 'Oh great, now look what you did.'

"Sorry kid." Dally came over to me. We had always had a pretty good relationship, he was kind of like another brother, but one who scared me sometimes. I can't say that I had ever been really scared by my actual brothers.

"I just found out." Dally had fire in his eyes. He put his hand on top of my head.

"I heard," I said. Two-Bit glared at him again.

"It's OK, Two-Bit." I said. "It's not like I never heard it before."

Nobody seemed to have a response for that.

"What time is it anyway? I had no idea how long I had been sleeping.

Steve looked at his watch. "Four thirty-five."

"Darry and Soda aren't back yet?" As if on cue, I heard Darry's truck pull into the driveway. It had been a nineteenth birthday present and it was anything but quiet.

Darry and Soda came through the door looking like they had been through a war. I guess whatever they had to do at the funeral home had not been easy. Darry looked exhausted. Soda just looked terrified.

Dally walked over to Darry and stood in front of him. "Darrel, I'm sorry." Dally had been one of Darry's friends since they were little. When Dally had still gone to school, they were in the same grade. Sometimes I could vaguely remember Dally as a little kid, before he became an honest-to-goodness delinquent. I could tell he was hurting. His tone was off.

"Thanks, Dallas. I know you are." Darry went past him into the kitchen and we watched him reach into the refrigerator and take out a beer. Darry rarely drank at home, and certainly not in the middle of the day. We all saw him, but nobody commented on it. Soda went into he and Pony's room and I could hear them talking softly.

I wandered in and sat down at the kitchen table with Darry. The guys must have decided to keep their distance, because they all stayed in the living room.

Darry took a drink, looked down at the table, and turned the beer bottle around in his hand.

"Was it terrible?" I couldn't think of a better way to ask.

"Pretty much." Darry didn't look up. "The funeral is on Monday. I decided on no wake because I thought it would be too hard on you and Pony."

And you and Soda, too, I thought. Standing there for hours listening to what my mom had taught me to say… "Sorry for your loss." It sounded unbearable.

"I need you to do something, Scout." He sounded hesitant to ask. I couldn't think of anything in the world he would be asking me, his twelve year old kid sister, to do in this situation.

"OK," I said, a little nervously.

He took a breath. "I need to bring some clothes to the funeral home, for them to… be buried in." His voice was cracking again. "I need you to pick out something for Mom."

I didn't know what to say. Obviously, I knew why he was asking me – he would have no idea how to pick out a woman's outfit – but the thought of going into Mom's closet and going through her things… I wasn't sure I could handle it.

"Now?" I needed some time.

"No. By tomorrow." I thought about it, and decided that sometime between now and then I could do it. It was the _only_ thing he was asking of me, after all. He was doing all the other hard stuff.

"OK."

He picked his gaze up from the table and looked at me. "Thanks," he said. "She would be proud of you for doing it." This was too much. I didn't want to think about her being proud of me or anything. I started to cry again and Darry stood up and came around behind me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to keep making you cry."

"Its not you," I said. "I just don't feel like I am ever going to stop. I can't believe this is even happening."

"I know. It might be awhile, Scout. For all of us."

He stood behind me with his arms around my neck for a while and then said, "I have to call Uncle Pat back." Then I understood. Hence the beer. Courage in a bottle, Two-Bit called it.

"Do you want me to stay in here?" Rather than trying to guess what he wanted or needed I figured I might as well just ask.

"No, go check on Soda. He's a wreck. I probably shouldn't have taken him." I got the feeling that self-doubt was going to be a big part of Darry's life now that he was in charge.

I walked back through the living room and was somewhat relieved to see that someone had turned on the TV. Nobody was watching it, but at least it covered the silence.

"Darry OK?" Dallas asked me.

"He has to call my uncle and tell him about the funeral. He's about as OK as any of us." I wasn't trying to be a wiseass, though I probably sounded like it. "Where's Johnny, couldn't you find him?" I turned to Two-Bit.

"Oh, I found him. He's real upset. I don't think he knows what to say to you guys. My guess is he's in the lot or somewhere trying to work it out."

"I'll go find him." Dallas was always looking out for Johnny. He grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

"Tell him he doesn't have to say anything," I told Dally. It was true, I didn't care if he said anything at all. I knew he was as sad as all of us and nothing he could say would change anything, so he need not stress out over that. Johnny barely talked in normal situations, nobody could possibly expect him to know how to react to this mess.

Soda and Pony's door was shut so I knocked softly. "What?" It was Pony's voice.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah." I opened the door and went in, closing it behind me. Pony was still sitting at his desk and Soda was sitting on the bed.

"You look like crap, Soda." Then, feeling bad, I added, "It was tough, huh?"

"It was awful. We had to pick out coffins and stuff." I was instantly glad to be too young to have been included in this meeting. Again, I hated to ask but had to know. "Did you have to… _see_ them?"

"No. After we bring the clothes and they fix them up and stuff… Then we can, if we want. I don't know if I want to, though."

"I don't either." I really didn't know.

"Did Darry ask you to pick out something for Mom?"

"Yeah." I changed the subject. "How's the writing going, Pony?"

"Harder than I thought. I am just not sure how I can describe them in half a newspaper column. I want people to know what great people they are… were. I just can't get it right." He sounded pretty frustrated.

"You'll get it, Pone," I said.

"I'll let you read it when I get something," he said. I read Pony's writing all the time, but now I wasn't sure I wanted to… I was just so tired of crying. I felt like I would have a headache forever.

I sat on the bed. I wasn't sure what to say next. I could hear Darry talking to the guys in the living room, telling them the details for the funeral. I hadn't heard the door but at some point Dally must have come back in, because I heard his voice. I wondered if he had Johnny with him. He was so quiet anyways.

I heard Soda's stomach growl beside me and it occurred to me that we hadn't eaten since my birthday dinner the night before. Without Mom there to cook for us I realized that we would have to make our own meals. Oh, Lord, I thought, we are all gonna starve. I knew a little about cooking from watching Mom, but my brothers were always getting kicked out of the kitchen while she cooked, not exactly picking up tips. I suddenly realized I was starving. That could not be helping my headache. What could I cook? Pasta seemed the safest choice. That was at least _something_ I could do to help out.

"I should make us some dinner." Soda and Pony both looked at me like I was insane.

"I'm serious," I said. "We haven't eaten all day."

"I am hungry," Soda said, "but what do you know how to cook? You've never cooked before."

"And you have?" I countered. "Besides, I am the one who was always in the kitchen with Mom. I'll just make spaghetti or something."

My brothers looked at each other. Pony shrugged. "That sounds fairly harmless," Soda said.

I just turned and walked back out into the living room. Johnny was there, a silent and uncomfortable lump on the couch squeezed into the corner next to Dallas. He looked nearly as bad as we did. He looked like he was the one who needed to be comforted.

"Hey Johnny," I said.

He looked up at me. His eyes were so dark. "Scout…" he started.

"I know," I said. That was it. I don't think any of us heard from Johnny again until after the funeral, though he was around the whole time. It was just easier to not say anything. Sometimes I felt like he was the baby, not me. He was so vulnerable.

Darry was back in the kitchen. He looked up when I came in. He was still playing with his beer bottle.

"I'm gonna cook something. We have to eat or we're all gonna get sick."

Darry looked startled. He, as well as I, had taken for granted that with Mom here, food had just appeared before us at regular intervals. With her gone, eating was gonna take some effort on our part. So far we had all just forgotten about it.

"You can cook?" He seemed incredulous.

"Nothing fancy. Just spaghetti." I was looking through the cabinets to see what we had. I took note of some canned soup, tuna, and corned beef hash. At least we won't starve right away, I thought. I pulled out a big jar of spaghetti sauce and a box of spaghetti. Realizing the gang was unlikely to disappear, I pulled out another box. Mom was used to feeding lots of boys, so she stocked up on stuff when it was on sale. I wondered who would do all the shopping now, and for the first time I wondered about how we would get by financially. There would be no more of Dad's paycheck. I turned around to Darry, but seeing him sitting at the table twirling his bottle, I decided this was not the best time for that conversation. I am sure it was weighing heavily on his mind. He was looking at me like I was insane, exactly the way Soda and Pony had.

"_What_?" I asked.

"You're really gonna cook?"

"Well somebody has to." I had climbed up on the counter to get the spaghetti, which was on one of the higher shelves. Darry set down his bottle and walked over, took the box out of my hand, put his hands around my waist, and lifted me down off the counter.

He looked down at me. "You need help?" he asked.

"Can you boil water?" I asked.


	5. The Outfits

So for my first ever attempt at feeding what was left of my family, it didn't go too badly. The spaghetti was a little al dente, but edible. I even found some frozen meatballs in the freezer and warmed them up with the sauce. Everybody at least ate something and I felt a little bit vindicated that, even as the baby of the family, I had been able to do _something_ useful.

After dinner the plates all sat in the sink and I think Pony thought he was going to get out of washing them -it had been his week- until Darry got after him about it. I was glad he did. I felt like we still needed that structure of following the same rules we had for Mom and Dad. And their rule had been: No TV, no going out, no fun until the dishes were washed. Pony grumbled but I think it was more because he was tired than anything. By the time he was done it was almost eleven.

Two-Bit and Steve had left after dinner and Dally and Johnny were heading out too. Normally Johnny would have just stayed over but I could tell he was completely uncomfortable with the sadness in our house. Our house was supposed to be the place he came to get away from sadness. I knew he wouldn't want to go home, either, so I figured he would probably sleep outside somewhere. I was glad it had stopped raining. I just didn't have the energy to try to convince him to stay, nor did anyone else. Maybe Dally would find him a bed somewhere.

The phone rang as Dally and Johnny were leaving. Darry rushed to get it. It was clear from his side of the conversation that it was one of his college football buddies. Pony, Soda and I all looked at each other as we realized that it was Friday night and we should have been at Darry's game, with Mom and Dad. I was shocked at how how quickly our reality had changed. Darry went into the kitchen and spoke softly to his friend. I sat down on Dad's chair and Soda crawled in with me. Eventually we heard Darry hang up and he wandered in. "We won," he said. We're going to the conference finals."

"That's great, Dar," I said, though I didn't really even try to muster up any enthusiasm in my voice. Soda and Pony said nothing. I was glad it had ended up just the four of us Curtises in the living room. It seemed we didn't really have the energy to try to relate to anyone else but ourselves. We all were imagining what should have been happening at that moment – us after the game, Dad hugging and congratulating Darry, Mom looking proud. The TV was still on and I was thankful for it. It seemed to me like we should never again shut it off. None of us was watching, and we could barely even hear it, but it made the silence between us more bearable. Alone in our thoughts, Pony was falling asleep and Soda was not far behind. I was starting to get pinned under his weight. Darry looked around.

"You guys need to go to bed. This is going to be a long weekend."

Understatement of the year, I was thinking.

Soda knew Pony was about to argue, so he just got up and didn't give him the chance.

"C'mon Pone. Lets go." Soda pulled him up and he begrudgingly followed him into the bedroom.

"'Night you guys. You know where I'll be if you need me." I suppose Darry thought he should say something guardian-ly, though it was doubtful he would be able to give any of us what we felt we needed, what we wanted, what was impossible.

"'Night, Dar." Soda closed their door. I didn't know if they would be able to sleep or not, but I had a feeling I was going to be awake for quite a while, even though I was completely exhausted. To be honest, I was afraid if I fell asleep I was going to dream about Mom and Dad. A part of me sort of wanted to dream about them. But I knew I would just have to wake up and face reality again. I just didn't want to close my eyes, not knowing what would happen, what dreams might come. I didn't want to go back into my bedroom, or my bed. All I could think about was last night, waking up to the doorbell, and before that, Mom and Dad tucking me in. I knew Darry must be exhausted too but selfishly I tried to think of a way to keep him up with me.

"I should get those clothes…" I said.

"You don't have to do it now, Scout. The morning is fine." I felt really bad about preventing him from sleep but I couldn't bear my bedroom yet.

"I have to do it now, Darry. Otherwise I'll think about it all night. Really. Come with me?" I didn't want to go in there alone.

Darry sighed. "Alright." We got up and went to the door of Mom and Dad's room. I knew it would be just the way they had left it. I froze at the door. Darry reached around me and turned the knob. I felt like we had disturbed a perfect vacuum, in my mind I practically heard a sucking sound as the knob turned. I hesitated. Darry nudged me gently from behind and I went in. He walked over to Dad's closet and I could see him pull out his good suit. I stood for a moment.

I had been in their room so many times but I saw it now as though I were seeing it for the first time. Every detail stood out. The neatly made bed, mom's robe on the chair, Dad's coffee cup by the bed… Mom always brought him coffee and the paper while she cooked us kids breakfast. Tears welled up again. I just sucked in a deep breath and walked over to the closet. I opened the doors and stood there. It smelled like her. I breathed it in.

I looked at her clothes. I realized that whatever I chose for her, it would be buried with her, gone forever. Certain things I just couldn't part with in that final a way, not yet. I was crying but for once it wasn't all encompassing, it was just kind of quiet and in the background. So, I thought, I am looking for something meaningful, that shows I put some thought into it, but nothing I will regret not being able to see later.

I touched all of the fabrics of her various dresses. I stood there for a few minutes, just looking. Finally I settled on something. It was a pink suit, a skirt and jacket, with a delicate white blouse underneath. She wore it to her conference with my teacher last year and when she first came out of the bedroom, Dad whistled and said that he wanted a conference with her later, too, which made her smile. She had also worn it to Darry's football banquet his junior year, when he was named captain for his senior year. It looked beautiful on her but wasn't something I could ever imagine myself wanting to wear. I'm not that into pink. I pulled it out of the closet and laid it on the bed. Darry was sitting on the other side, and had been watching me.

"Perfect," he said.

"Do they need the…other stuff?" I didn't want to talk about underwear with my big brother.

"Everything, I think." I went into her drawers and picked out underwear, a bra, and pantyhose. Then I chose some shoes from the closet. I put everything together on the bed. I looked at what Darry had picked for Dad. It was his best suit and a white shirt. He had chosen a terrible tie. I walked into Dad's closet and chose a different one. I walked out with it and held it up to show Darry.

"I gave him that one. Three Christmases ago."

"Then this is the one." I knew Darry had picked a different one because it looked more expensive. But I know Dad had liked the one Darry gave him better.

We looked at the outfits on the bed. I guess we were done. I looked at Darry. I tried but couldn't come up with any other excuse to keep him from going to sleep.

"Thanks," he said.

"Well, I did my best," I said. "I hope it's OK."

"You did great," he said.

"Darry?" I wasn't sure what I was going to say.

"What?" his answer was so full of exhaustion that I decided right then and there to just suck it up and go to bed and not bother him with anything else.

"Nothing… Just… Goodnight." I had no idea how I would go into my room and sleep there. I was petrified.

Darry squeezed my shoulder. "Goodnight. I'll come tuck you in in a minute."

"OK." I padded off through the kitchen to my bedroom. I stood at the door and could hardly bear to open it. I forced myself to do it. I walked in and crawled into bed, frozen. I closed my eyes and lay there, terrified. Don't think; I willed myself. Don't, Don't, Don't. Don't think about last night. Don't think about Mom and Dad. I tried to clear my mind of everything, just make it black and void. Darry came in, sat on the edge of my bed, and put his hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes and stared up at him.

"It will get harder at first but then it will get easier." He promised, then turned and left. I couldn't even respond. I could hear Pony and Soda in the next room… it sounded like they were crying and talking, both at the same time. I was so jealous… I wished I had someone in the room with me. I tried to decipher what they were saying while I shut my eyes and begged for sleep.


	6. The Secret

Sleep never came. I lay there and stared at the ceiling for hours, eyes wide open. In the distance I heard the whistle of the freight trains passing through on their routes east and west. In the past I had always thought that whistle had been a comforting sound, while I lay snuggled in my bed safe at home, surrounded by my family. Suddenly it sounded lonely, mournful. I shuddered and turned over. Clearly sleeping was not going to happen. Finally I checked the clock and seeing nearly quarter past two, I figured Darry must be asleep.

Never before would I have ever considered this, but I grabbed my blanket and tiptoed through the kitchen into Darry's room. Taking what seemed like hours to be certain to open his door silently, I tiptoed into his room, closed the door silently behind me, and crept across the floor. His breathing was light and regular, with a quiet snore. I lay down on the floor on the far side of his bed, between the bed and the wall. I didn't want to wake him up, I just wanted to know that he was between me and anything else bad that could happen. The floor was littered with dirty clothes and books but I didn't care. With Darry between me and the door, I finally felt safe, and sleep crept up on me faster that I could have imagined. I was so tired.

Later that night I awoke to a strange noise. It took some time to identify it but eventually I realized it was Darry, crying. I was shocked. Here was what I had expected to hear from him for the past few days… and hadn't. I figured that if he hadn't cried yet, he wasn't going to at all, and assumed this stoicism came as a byproduct of his new role as head of the family. I had never seen my Dad cry. My heart ached for my brother. All I wanted was to comfort him…as he had me… But he had no idea that I was even there. I froze on the floor of his room, not knowing what to do.

"Oh God," he whispered. "Help me." He sobbed some more. "I don't know how to take care of them." "Help me. I'm just a kid myself!" He was clearly petrified. "I just wanna be there for them. God, please! Please help me. Help me do this right."

Sitting there, frozen, I realized that he was more scared for us than himself. He had lost his parents, too, I thought – he should be mourning too -but all he was worried about was us. I weighed the options, and finally felt like going to him would do more good than pretending I wasn't there.

I crawled up from my position on the floor to the bed and circled my arms around Darry from behind. "Darry, it's okay," I whispered. I reached for his hand.

He was startled to hear and feel me there. "Scout?" He pulled his hand away, wiping his eyes, then reached down to take my hand in his. "What are you doing in here? You OK?" He didn't turn around. I could see him trying with all his might to stop crying, to hide his own fear and vulnerability. It made his whole body shake.

"I was scared, so I came in here. I was sleeping on the floor. I didn't want to wake you up, I just wanted to sleep on your floor. I'm sorry, Darry. I heard you crying."

"Scout, I…"

"Darry, you are as sad as all of us. You should be. I was scared to not see you crying before." He squeezed more tightly on my hand. "You don't have to try to be everything for us. We can take some responsibility." I wasn't sure, at age twelve, what exact kind of responsibility I would be able to take on, but I was game for anything to help take the load off Darry, and I knew Pony and Soda would be as well. Especially if they could have seen him like this.

He didn't respond. His body was still shaking and I tightened my grip around him. He seemed huge. My arms didn't even reach around his chest. Physically, he was even more tortured now, trying not to cry, than he had been while actually crying.

"Darry, please. It's OK to cry. I need you to cry. I feel like you think you can't show us you're sad too, and scares me."

He answered softly. "I'm sad too, Scout," I wished for a moment then that Darry didn't have to be the oldest, that he didn't have to feel all the pressure he was feeling. But none of us would be able to do any better, I realized.

"I know. I knew." We just lay there. Forever, it seemed. He continued to cry softly. I buried my face in the back of his head. His hair felt soft, and smelled of shampoo and hair grease.

"Darry?" I wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep. His breathing was more even and he had stopped shaking.

"Yeah?" he was awake, but barely.

"Could I stay in here tonight? I was completely dreading going back to my bed. I don't know why I was so scared to be alone.

Darry's response surprised me.

"I'd like that," he said, and turned around to face me. Apparently a twelve year-old kid can comfort her nineteen year old brother, just by letting him cry. I guess he didn't want to be alone either, really. He circled his arms around me, as I had him, and let me rest my head on his arm. He wasn't crying at all anymore. "I'm not crushing you, am I?" I think this was the first time ever that I heard Darry acknowledge how big he is, and the fact that sometimes he can be kind of rough by mistake just because he so damned much bigger than everybody else.

"I'm fine, " I said. "And Darry?" I added.

"Hmm?" He was half asleep.

"Don't worry," I assured him, " I won't tell Pony and Soda about you crying." I assumed he never wanted any of us to know.

"I know you won't." He whispered. As shocking as it had been to see Darry cry, strangely, I had never felt more safe with him in my whole life.

"Try to get some sleep," he said.

I was so close to sleeping. "Love you, Darry." I did.


	7. The Friendship

I couldn't tell the next morning whether I had actually slept or not. It seemed like I might have, but I awoke in exactly the same position in which I had fallen asleep, which, for me, was unheard of. Normally, I toss and turn all night and when I wake up my covers are tangled all around me. My brothers find it amusing that I rarely have any free limbs with which to fight back when they dive on me to wake me up each morning. They actually started calling the process of waking me up 'demummifying' me. I could hardly believe I hadn't stolen all the sheets from Darry and gotten kicked out of the bed and back to my own room. Yet my head was still on his arm and his eyes were closed. I guess neither of us had moved.

I instantly felt the ache of my neck having been in a strange position all night (though I didn't want to move it, for fear of waking him) and wondered how he could have had my head on his arm all night and not have had it fall asleep. Maybe it had something to do with the size of his muscles? God knows, his arms were easily the four times the size of mine. I couldn't really imagine Darry being little… he had always been big to me. Sure, I had seen pictures of him at my age, even as a baby and a toddler, but in my mind I just couldn't reconcile those images with the Darry I knew. He had already been six by the time I was born.

I looked at him in the dim light. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen him sleeping. He used to share a room with Soda and once in a while I would wake up first and be sent in to rouse them for breakfast, so I had seen him sleeping at some point, but he looked different now. His features hadn't changed – he was still handsome, with a chiseled face that was sharper than any of the rest of us possessed, but I noticed the stubble on his chin, the hint of wrinkles yet to be revealed on his face. Suddenly I realized he looked more like Dad than I had ever thought. People always said they looked alike but I had never really seen it before now. Before, they had been in different categories in my mind – Darry was a boy, Dad was a man. I realized that, from now on, whether he wanted to be or not, Darry was going to have to be a man.

I remembered his words from the day before: "I'm gonna do the best I can." I knew he meant it. While we shared a love for sports, Darry was by far the most competitive one in the family. He never wanted to be second best at anything. He could never understand why I didn't get more upset when my basketball team lost, even if I knew I had done my best. I knew that he must already be putting so much pressure on himself to do right by us, to be the best. Yet he had to know that filling my parents shoes completely was impossible.

Sometimes I used to get so mad when my brothers got to do things I didn't, and would wish that I had been the oldest, but if something had to happen to our folks and leave us without them, Darry was definitely the one who had the best chance of keeping the family together. I thanked God for leaving me three brothers to look out for me. At least I wouldn't be alone. I often wondered how Johnny's life would be different if he had a sibling. At least he'd only get beat up half as often…

Somehow Darry must have sensed that I was staring at him because his eyes twitched and then flickered open.

His eyes looked blank for a moment and then focused on me. He stared back.

"What are you looking at?" He was teasing.

I tried to smile. It wasn't easy, with everything going on in my head.

"Scout?"

"Yeah?"

"You're killing my arm." I immediately sat up. "I'm sorry," I said. I felt like he probably wanted me to leave. Last night with the circumstances it had seemed OK, but now he probably found it pretty annoying to have his kid sister taking up half his bed.

"Thanks for letting me sleep in here," I started to get up.

"I was kinda glad you came in, actually." He pulled me back down.

I laid back on the bed and replaced my head where it had been, Darry having shifted positions.

"I just thought you might be mad, I mean… I know you don't really want us in here," I admitted. "It's just…. Pony and Soda have each other. I felt kinda scared being alone."

"I have a feeling that might change," he said. I wasn't really sure what he meant, which part of what I said he was talking about. "Have you heard the boys up?'

"Not yet. I think we're first." Normally that would mean one of us would go tearing in to wake them up but neither of us seemed to have the heart. I think we both felt the weight of the day ahead of us, waiting for Monday when we would bury our parents. Darry told me they don't like to do funerals on Sundays because it interferes with the regular church services. I could not imagine how we would fill the space between now and then. I was sure the funeral would be terrible. But the waiting felt even worse.

"You still tired?" Darry asked. I honestly didn't know the answer.

"No." I don't even know if I lied.

"Want to help me with breakfast?" As little experience as the boys had with cooking, Darry had helped our Dad make Mom breakfast in bed at least every Mother's Day, so I was pretty confident we could pull it off.

"Ok, I guess." As I walked out into the kitchen I wondered if Darry's room would become off-limits again soon. I had actually really enjoyed being alone with him. Pony and Soda had always been close, as well as Darry and Soda - and Soda had always been my "go-to" brother as well… I was glad to have had private time with Darry. As for Soda, I knew he was always there for me, but Ponyboy? We just didn't get along that well. I kinda wished I could have the same time with Pony as I had just had with Darry. Pony had hugged me that first night on Darry's bed, taken over for Soda when he was going to keep tabs on Darry with the cops… Pony and I…we just have so much in common, it was weird to me that we had such trouble getting along. Things seemed to be changing though… we'll see, I thought.

I wandered into the shower, washed up and put on clean clothes, realizing I had been wearing the same clothes since my parents tucked me in two nights ago. I brushed my teeth and hair and looked in the mirror and stared. I had seen the same face looking back at me for my whole life, but suddenly I looked different. An orphan, I thought. I felt like if Social Services had come, they would have removed me from the house just on the basis of my looks. I was strikingly separate, as a Curtis. My brothers all had golden-brown hair, like my Dad, and Dad's height. As for me, I had dark, almost black hair – my Mom's, and was small for my age. I was just over five feet, while both Soda and Darry had already topped six feet, and Pony was rapidly approaching it. Darry and I had the same blue eyes – Mom's, again, and Soda had Dad's brown eyes. Our parents had said that Pony had my mom's mother's - my Irish grandmother's green eyes. It had never bothered me before that I didn't look like my brothers, so much – I had always looked so much like my Mom. But with her gone, the contrast between my brothers and me seemed even more striking. I felt sadness for a moment that my parents would never see me grow up. I was at that age where my body was just beginning to change; yet my parents would never know me as a teenager, or an adult. I tried my best to get the thought out of my mind. I parted my hair and braided it, in two long braids down each side of my face. Then I just tied them behind my head. I hate having my hair in my face, and it is almost always either braided or pulled back in a ponytail.

I dragged myself into the kitchen to find Darry making pancake batter. Between the two of us, we managed to make a pretty respectable breakfast. To be honest, I had no desire to eat, but I appreciated the opportunity to stay busy, to keep my mind off everything. I considered just staying in the kitchen, cooking all day long, but I knew that would just be a waste of food. The truth is, we already had a backlog of frozen foods from people in the neighborhood, the high school booster club, Darry's football team parents, and a whole bunch of other people who thought their best expression of sympathy would be a casserole or a lasagna. Even Two-Bit's flighty mom had followed through with some sort of soufflé-looking thing. We would be pretty well fed for a while, which reassured me quite a bit after my original irrational fear that we would all starve in the absence of my mom.

Eventually I could hear Pony and Soda talking, and while Darry finished up the eggs I headed down the hall and knocked softly on the door. I guess I am the only one who knocks that way, because they knew it was me.

"Come in Scout," Soda said.

I stuck my head in the door. "Darry and me made breakfast." The minute I said it I thought 'ugh, bad grammar. Pony's gonna correct me.' Pony was always on my case about grammar. I never wrote things wrong, it was only when I talked. That's what happens when you hang around with a bunch of hoods who talk like that, I kept telling him! I saw him look at me but he must have seen in my eyes that I just didn't have the patience for it right then. I was pretty surprised. Soda can tell what I am thinking a lot of the time, but with Pony and I, we are just constantly crossing signals and getting into arguments as a result. Again, it's so weird that we don't get along, because Darry and Soda both are always telling us how much we are alike.

Everybody eventually wandered into the kitchen and we sat down hesitantly for our first family breakfast without our parents. In the past, Mom would always serve us breakfast and after we were all at the table Dad would wander out of the bedroom, still reading the paper and giving us all pop quizzes about whatever homework he had helped us with the night before. Even Soda did OK on Dad's quizzes, though he never could seem to pass his tests in school. Pony and Darry and I would compete, each of us trying to answer each other's questions. Of course mine were always the easiest, but every once in a while Pony or I would answer one of Darry's and Dad and Soda and would egg us on to get Darry upset. Like I said, Darry is the most competitive.

I was sitting, pretending to eat by moving food around on my plate, when the doorbell rang. The first time after the cops came, I had felt a chill at the sound. Since then, the bell had announced the arrival of a million casseroles. It almost seemed normal now.

Soda was closest to the door. He pushed his chair back and walked through the living room to the door. I heard a Soda-ish friendly greeting and the obligatory "Thanks." I knew whomever it was would have been expressing their condolences.

"Scout!" I was surprised to hear Soda call me. I looked at Darry and Pony questioningly and pushed my chair back from the table, actually a little grateful that I didn't have to eat anything. I walked into the living room to find my best friend and neighbor Ben. I ran to him and he put down his bag and held his arms out to me. As close as I am to the guys in the gang, Ben is my age and he pretty much knows what I am thinking all of the time. Unfortunately he had been away with his family for the weekend when my parents' accident occurred. I hadn't expected him back until later that night.

"We got the paper there and came right back." Ben's Mom and my parents had been friends. Ben's Dad had died shortly after he was born and it had been just him, his mom, and his brother Kevin since. Kevin was a year younger than Darry and they had been on the high school football team together. His Mom and our parents were good friends, and had gone to watch Darry and Kevin's games together. They went every fall to visit his grandparents in Florida, and had left the night before my parents' accident.

I grabbed Ben's hand and dragged him into the kitchen. "Darry, It's Ben. Can I be excused?" I probably could have just left but I really felt like even without Mom and Dad I should still follow protocol.

"OK." Darry looked slightly pleased to see me with another outlet for my grief. "Stay in our yards." Ben's backyard and ours backed up to each other. I cleared my plate, stuck it in the sink, and headed out into the yard. Ben stayed a second to talk to Darry, handed off his bag with the obligatory food item along with his family's condolences, and then headed out the back door behind me. I was sitting with my back against the fence that separated our house from the one next door. Ben came over and sat down next to me. He didn't say anything.

"How was your trip?" I was trying as hard as possible to be cool about everything, I really didn't want to cry again. It was exhausting me, mentally and physically.

"Scout… come on, it's me." I was hoping he wouldn't play that card right away. Ben was more like my twin than my friend. He knew I was a mess, he knew how much the loss of my parents would have hurt me. He could read me like a book, even knew every detail of how I related to the other guys in the gang. He probably could have put how I felt into words better than I could have.

"_You_ don't ring our doorbell!" I said. It was the truth. Ben usually just walked in, and hollered "hey," like everyone else. I'm not sure why I was so upset about him ringing it today, though.

"I wasn't sure who would be over or what would be going on." Sometimes some of the gang gave Ben a hard time, because Kevin had once stolen a girl from Darry. Darry himself was over it- he had been only fifteen- but a few of the gang insisted on holding a grudge, against not only Kevin but Ben as well. Ben and I had been trying to rise above this idiocy for years, with Darry's blessing, even. He and Kevin got along fine, though Kev mostly hung out with a different bunch of guys from the neighborhood. The girl had long since moved on from both of them. In Darry's eyes, as my oldest brother, any person he could enlist to help look out for me was OK with him, so Ben was cool. In fact, Ben was pretty much universally accepted by my brothers. It was mostly Steve and Dallas who gave him a hard time. I didn't much care about what those two thought of him anyway.

We stood up and walked out into the backyard. I felt like a disaster, and could already feel my eyes welling up, so I gave up on the playing cool nonsense. Ben would never have bought it anyway.

"You know how it happened?" I asked.

"The paper said drunk driver?"

"Yeah." I didn't know what else to say. "The funeral's tomorrow."

"I know. We'll be there."

"This sucks." This had been the general sentiment of the whole gang, our best effort to put into words what we had been feeling. We were all so angry and feeling the pain of the loss but there was no way to release it. I'm sure Dallas had gone out and roughed someone up, while Two-Bit probably made a good college try at drinking away his sorrows, but the fact was, none of us knew how to make the hurting go away for real.

"I bet it does." I was glad he hadn't said "I know." I felt like the only people who truly knew how it felt were my brothers, and, to a lesser degree, the guys in the gang. Ben had lost a parent, but he had been just a baby then. He had been close to my parents, but at the end of the day he had his own home and family. He hadn't needed our folks as much as the guys in the gang did.

"Do you want to come over? We can watch TV or something."

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. The thought of getting out of my house for a while was pretty appealing. On the other hand, I wasn't sure what more would need to be done at home for the funeral, if anything. I imagined whatever might have to be done, it probably did not involve me.

"Honestly Ben, I have no idea what I want right now, except to have everything back to how it was before. I just want my Mom and Dad back."

"If I could give you that, you know I would." Ben looked at me with an expression that proved he meant what he said.

I didn't respond. Nobody could give me that, I knew. We stared at each other and shared a few minutes of silence – not so much an uncomfortable one, more of a meaningful silence. I didn't feel like talking and he didn't want to make me. He put his hand on my shoulder. "I totally understand if you want me to leave you alone," he said.

That wasn't what I wanted, either. Ben was the first person I had been around in the past two days that was not totally consumed by grief.

"I guess I'll come over," I finally said, knowing I would probably feel just as terrible no matter where I was. "I have to ask Darry, though." Then I added, realizing Ben didn't know, "Darry's gonna take care of us now."

He looked surprised. I was ready to defend Darry if Ben even hinted at the idea that he thought he wouldn't be able to handle it, but he didn't. "Oh." Was all he said.

"I'll be right back."

I headed back into the house and found Soda and Pony collapsed on the couch staring blankly at the TV and Darry in the kitchen doing dishes.

"Darry, is it OK if I go over to Ben's for a while?" He didn't even look up.

"I guess so. Be back by 2, I have to go drop off that stuff at the funeral home and go pick up Uncle Pat at the airport and I don't want to make Pony or Soda stay home alone." This was funny in a "things are so wrong around here" kind of way. Usually Pony and Soda would give anything to get some time alone at home. Soda'd have a girl over in no time and Pony would do whatever it is Pony does when he's alone, with nobody bothering him. Read books or draw pictures, or something, I guess. Pony didn't seem to care so much about girls, yet. But Darry knew that none of us wanted to be alone right now.

"I thought you said Uncle Pat was coming alone."

Darry turned and looked at me funny. "He is."

For a minute I was completely confused, wondering why they couldn't all go to the airport, until I remembered we no longer had a car. Just Darry's truck. And it was a tight squeeze to get three in there, let alone four. For a moment I let my mind wander to think about what had become of our family car after the accident, but as quickly as it had come I banished the thought out of my mind.

"Oh. Right." I felt stupid. Darry went back to his dishes.

As I headed through the living room I heard him call me. "And Scout?"

"What?"

"Use your manners." I stopped short and almost cried when he said that. That was always the last thing Mom said to us whenever we went over anyone's house, along with "Be safe." I suppose Darry didn't think I had to worry too much about being safe just going to Ben's house, so he had omitted that part. I saw Soda and Darry look up towards Darry and I knew they were thinking the same thing I was, that we wished it was Mom's voice that we heard saying it instead.

I couldn't answer so I just walked out the door. Ben was waiting where I had left him, kicking idly at the dirt and destroying a sizeable anthill that it had probably taken an ant family a full week to make. "Yard" was kind of an exaggeration for the space surrounding our house. It was pretty much just dirt and weeds. Every once in a while the weeds would really get out of control and we would haul the crappy old lawnmower out of the garage and mow them back into submission, but that was about the extent of our landscaping.

"Lets go," I said, and Ben followed. There was a fence between our yards too – nearly all the houses in our neighborhood had fences (and a good deal of them had mean-looking dogs inside the fences, too) but years of Ben and his brother and my family climbing over it had finally caused one of the metal support poles to work its way out of the ground and become detached from the wire mesh. As we continued to climb over it the whole middle of the thing had collapsed and now it hung limply about a foot from the ground, forming a makeshift metal bridge between our two yards. This actually came in pretty handy when it rained and huge puddles formed in the gulleys where the fence had originally been. The bridge ushered us dryly over the puddles. On the flip side, I was constantly scraping my legs on the sharp ends of the wire stepping up to the broken fence, and had torn several pairs of pants in this manner.

"Is your Mom home?" I asked as he pulled me up onto the fence. I was dreading the condolences. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of people pitying me and my brothers. Anyone but us, that is. Plus, the whole "I'm sorry" thing felt so insufficient to even make a small dent in the way I was feeling.

"Yeah," Ben said. "That OK?"

"Yeah. Just wondering." I was going to have to deal with it sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. I tried to assume Darry's feigned stoicism.

The door to Ben's house opened directly into the kitchen. His mom was at the table with a stack of papers in front of her, presumably going through the mail that had come since they were gone. She jumped up as soon as we walked in. Her look was not so much pity as genuine sympathy.

"Oh Scout," she said. "I am so, so sorry." She was tall for a woman and she came over and knelt on one knee to hug me. "I'm so sorry," she said again quietly, right into my ear. She smelled nice. I remembered how Mom used to hug me when I was hurt or upset and I ached at the fact that she would never comfort me again.

"Thank you," I whispered. Crying again. Jeez.

"Honey, if there is anything, I mean anything I can do to help you our your brothers you just say the word. I know your Mom and Dad would have done the same for Ben and Kevin." She was right, they would have. Our Mom probably would have had them living with us by the next week.

"Thanks, Mrs. Cummings." I truly couldn't think of a single thing she could do to help, which actually made me feel sort of bad. "I'm sure we'll let you know."

"You tell your brother Darrel I said that."

"Yes, ma'am, I will." She really was a nice lady. Ben and I had both been blessed with great mothers. We stood there for a second in silence – this time it _was_ kind of awkward, until Ben grabbed my hand. "Come on," he said, and led me out of the kitchen.


	8. The Obituary

We went into Ben's living room and sat down on the couch. He sat down next to me at first but then got right back up and snapped on the television. I welcomed the sound, as usual. I didn't think I would ever be comfortable with silence again. We just sat there, looking at the TV. I don't even know what we were watching – I wasn't even seeing it but I was immensely grateful to Ben for not forcing the conversation.

Finally I turned to Ben and asked him, "Does Kevin ever talk about your Dad?"

He seemed surprised at the question. "Not really," he said.

"Oh." I knew he was struggling to follow my thinking. "He was 8 when he died?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think he still misses him?"

"I think so, sometimes. Especially hanging around with the other guys' dads." He cringed as he realized Kevin wouldn't have my Dad around anymore either. "Sorry… I didn't mean to bring that up."

"I know," I said. "It's OK. I feel like I just need to know how long I'm gonna feel like this, how long 'til I feel even close to functional."

"It's only been two days, Scout. You haven't even had the funeral yet."

"I know. I know." I did know. But the emptiness, the loneliness, the fear- it was taking over. Ben looked at me with a completely helpless expression, so that for a second I actually felt sorry for him. I knew he wanted to help, the do something to make me feel better, but he had no idea what to do and I couldn't help him either. I had no suggestions.

I just reached across the couch and hugged him.

"I'm really, really sorry Scout," he said.

"I know. Thanks for coming back. Just having you here helps." I knew that he had loved my parents, too. They had been like part of his own family, we had been together so much. Ben and I had always been extremely close but weren't usually the hugging type. But this felt natural, nice.

"I wish I could do more to help," he said, and I knew he meant it. You just can't always get what you want, I knew that, even at twelve.

We watched a little more TV but neither of us was really interested so eventually we ended up back outside, sitting on some ratty old beach chairs Steve and Soda had dragged up from the cellar the week before while they were working on an old engine in the side yard. Pony wandered outside to smoke and came and sat with us.

"You want a smoke, Ben?" he asked. Ben occasionally smoked but was nowhere near the addict Pony was. I kind of expected him to say yes but instead he declined.

"No, I'm good. Thanks though," he said. Pony shrugged. He handed me a piece of paper. I took it and opened it up. The obituary.

"It's still not great but it's the best I could do, under the circumstances."

I felt the tears come again as I read Pony's tall, scrawly writing.

_Darrel Shaynne Curtis, Sr., and Mary Elisabeth (MacIntyre) Curtis, aged 40 and 38, respectively, died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Tulsa on October 3, 1967, their twentieth wedding anniversary. They are survived by three sons: Darrel, Jr., Sodapop, and Ponyboy, and a daughter, Samantha Scout. Mary also leaves a brother, Patrick MacIntyre, his wife Carrie, and their four children, of Galveston, Texas._

_Darrel and Mary, or "Molly," as she was known to friends and family, were born and raised in South Tulsa. They met in high school at Tulsa South High, where Darrel was an all-state athlete in football and Molly was a captain of the cheerleading squad. After high school, Darrel went on to play for the University of Tulsa as a wide receiver. After his college graduation with a degree in engineering, they were married in October, 1947. They settled down to raise their family in the same neighborhood where they had grown up. They remained devoted football fans throughout their lives._

_Darrel was employed for the past 20 years by The Southern Pacific Railroad, as a construction foreman and site manager, and most recently as a member of the engineering management division. He was a devoted family man, never missing an opportunity to support or encourage his children, be it academically, athletically, or creatively._

_Molly was a devoted mother, homemaker and wife, and was admired by all she met for her warm heart and gentle nature. She was actively involved in all of her children's activities, both academic and athletic, and made sure that her home was well-known in the neighborhood as a place of safety and acceptance. She had kind words for everyone she met and truly believed that "There are no strangers, only friends who haven't yet met."_

_They will be greatly missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing them._

I was crying when I finished. "It's great, Pony," I said. "I couldn't have done it."

"Can I read it?" Ben asked timidly.

I looked at Pony. He looked completely spent. "I guess so," he said. I passed it over to Ben, wiping my eyes. I tried to change the subject

"What's going on in there?" I asked, motioning toward our house.

"Not much. Nothing good, anyway." It seemed weird that none of the gang had showed up today. They just didn't know how to act around us right now, I guessed… Like I said before, our house was supposed to be the safe haven, the place they went to get away from stress. Who knows where they were going now. I wish I knew, I thought, I'd go there too.

Ben folded the paper back up and handed it to Pony. "It's really good, Pony. If I wasn't trying to be so tough in front of Scout I probably would have cried too."

I kicked him. He sneered at me. It felt almost normal.

"Thanks." Pony took the paper and shoved it in his back pocket.

"Who's going with Darry to get Uncle Pat?" I asked.

"I am. Soda doesn't want to go to the funeral home again."

"Are you sure _you_ want to go?" I asked.

"I'm sure I don't," he said. "But I'm not making him go alone, either." I would have offered to go but I knew they wouldn't let me anyway, so I didn't even suggest it. I remembered how Pony had acted like he wanted to go before, just because Darry and Soda weren't taking him along the first time. Now that he had seen how Soda looked after he went, he had changed his tune.

"Is Pat staying with us?"

"No, he got a hotel by the airport. He's coming here for dinner tonight. I guess he and Darry have to talk about some things."

That made sense. I was glad to have him coming here, to feel like somebody would be handling things. Other than now knowing that my parents had a will, I had no idea if they had insurance, a savings account, anything. Uncle Pat was a businessman; he would know how to deal with that stuff. Maybe he and Mom had even discussed it before. I felt a small amount of relief, a small lifting of weight of worry about things I had not even realized I had been worrying about. "That's good," I said.

"Yeah, I think so," Pony said. He stared at the dirt and kicked at it, just as Ben had before. Poor ants, I thought, they can't build anything around here without some stressed-out greaser kid destroying their handiwork. I imagined them underground, cussing us out in ant language as their tunnels collapsed around them. I wondered for a short moment if I was actually losing my mind.

We sat in silence and I watched Pony finish his cigarette and crush the stub under his foot. "You got the time, Ben?" He asked.

Ben glanced at his watch. "One-thirty," he said. Pony stood up.

"I better go get ready," he said. "Scout, you better come too, Darry wants you and Soda to clean the place up."

I looked back at Ben. "Guess I gotta go," I said. "Will you be around?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he said.

"Maybe I'll see you later, then," I said, following Pony around to the front porch. He walked in and, oblivious to me behind him, let the porch door slam in my face.

"Nice, Pony," Soda commented from the couch, motioning to me.

"What?" he said, turning around. "Oh. Sorry."

I just pushed the door open and looked at him, shaking my head.

"That's why you can't get a girl, Pony, you have one right beside you and you can't even remember they're there," Soda teased.

"Shut it, Soda," he said, without even looking at him.

"Not now, you two," Darry said, as he came into the living room buttoning his shirt. "Pony, brush your teeth and wash up. I don't want us picking up Uncle Pat with you smelling like a chimney and looking like a hobo."

Pony glared and headed into the bathroom.

I sat down with Soda on the couch and Darry turned to face us. "While we're gone, I want you two to pick up around here. Scout, you did a pretty decent job with supper last night, you think you can come up with something edible for us tonight?"

I was skeptical, but I seemed a much safer bet than Soda. "I guess so," I said.

"Good. Pat and I have a lot of paperwork and stuff we need to go over, so you three are gonna have to stay out of our hair after dinner, got it?"

"Got it," Soda and I replied unenthusiastically.

"Also, you need to wash whatever you're gonna be wearing tomorrow. I expect us all to look decent." I hadn't even thought about what I would wear to the funeral. I guessed I had to deal with that.

"Pony, let's go," he yelled.

Pony appeared in the doorway behind him looking miserable. I knew the funeral home was the last place in the world he wanted to be going.

"You got the obituary?" Darry asked.

"I got it."

"All right, let's go then." Darry turned and Pony followed him out the door.

"We'll be back by five," Darry called over his shoulder.


	9. The Uncle

It was a long moment before either Soda or I was motivated to budge from the couch. We just sat there staring at the TV.

"We gotta clean up, Soda," I said.

"I know," he said.

"Well, now might be a good time to start."

Soda looked up at me with his but-I'm-so-helpless look. This may have worked on all the girls that were so crazy about him, but it definitely did not work on anyone in our family.

"Oh, no you don't," I said. "I'm _not_ cleaning this house by myself AND cooking supper."

"Buck up for not doing the bathroom?" He was looking to negotiate.

"All right," I agreed. "You call."

"Evens," he said. "One, two, three, shoot."

I threw a two and he threw a one. "Have fun!" He called and took off for his bedroom.

"You better clean up in there, Soda," I yelled. I went into the bathroom and started the hot water in the shower. I scrubbed down the sink and shower, washed the mirror and turned to face the toilet. There is no way it is fair, I decided, for the only girl in the house to clean a toilet that three boys use. Clearly accuracy was not a priority for them. But I wanted things to look decent for my Uncle, so I just went ahead and cleaned it. It occurred to me that my mom must have been doing this for years and I had never once heard her complain.

I could hear noises from Pony and Soda's room and I supposed that was a good sign. I moved on to the living room, neatened things up and vacuumed the rug. My room was in pretty good shape, so I went into the kitchen. Things in there went pretty quick, it was just a matter of sweeping, putting away dishes and wiping down the counters and table with a sponge. I didn't know whether or not I was supposed to go pick up in Darry's room; I didn't know if I was allowed in there still or not, so I just shut the door.

I went into my bedroom and threw open my closet. I supposed I had to wear a skirt, or a dress. I didn't have much in the way of "formal" clothes. I mostly just wear plain skirts and sweaters to school, and outside of school, jeans. I had a red dress from the last time I had been to a wedding, a plaid schoolgirl-ish skirt that mom had insisted I wear to my littlest cousin's first communion last time we were in Texas, and a few other skirts that I was pretty sure were too short to wear to a funeral. I decided red was probably not appropriate for a funeral either, so I settled on the plaid skirt with navy blue knee socks, and a matching navy cotton sweater. Knowing they had been in the closet since last summer, I figured I'd better wash them so at least they smelled clean. I threw them in a laundry basket and walked down to Soda and Pony's room and knocked.

"Come in, if you dare," Soda said.

I opened the door. The room was spotless. I couldn't believe it. I bent down to see how much stuff he had shoved under the bed. Nothing.

"Soda!"

He just beamed; he was so pleased with himself.

"Where'd you hide it?" I asked.

"A true magician never reveals his secrets," he said.

"Well, fine," I said. "Do you or Pony need anything washed for tomorrow? Put it in the basket and bring it out. I have to go figure out what to do about dinner."

Soda returned to the reality of what was going on, and his smile faded. "Okay," he said.

I wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboards. I looked around, trying to think of something I had watched Mom cook closely enough that I might be able to recreate it. Something told me canned soup wasn't exactly what Darry had in mind to feed Uncle Pat.

I looked in the refrigerator: chicken, hamburger. Then the freezer: Ham steak, Fish sticks. I kept fish sticks in mind as a worst-case scenario. I pulled out the chicken, hoping for an inspiration. I should have just pulled out one of those frozen casseroles everyone sent over. But it was already four-thirty and those things would take hours to defrost, I figured, even in the oven. Suddenly I remembered something Mom had made last winter. I took out the chicken breasts and laid them in the bottom of a roasting pan. I opened a package of egg noodles and poured them in. The top layer was two cans of mushroom soup, some milk, and a cup of water. I was pretty sure that's how it went. I put the oven on four hundred and covered the whole thing with aluminum foil, stuck it in the oven and crossed my fingers. I had no idea how long to cook it, so I just figured I'd check it every ten minutes 'til it looked ready. Soda had wandered in and was sitting at the table watching me.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked.

"Not really."

"Just don't make us all sick," he said. He was trying to be funny. I had no patience for it.

"You know, Soda, I really appreciate your confidence," I said, sarcastically.

He looked hurt.

"I was just kidding."

"I know. I'm sorry, but look, Soda, I don't know how to do this! Darry asked me to try, so what am I gonna tell him, no? He's doing all the hard stuff for us, Soda. This sucks for him even more than us, probably!" I was yelling, without meaning to. "He's lying in bed crying at night because he's worried about doing a good enough job with us! This is the only way I know to even try to help! We have to help him out, Soda. He can't do this alone!" I was yelling through tears now.

"What? Darry hasn't even shed a tear!" Soda was defiant. "What the hell are you talking about?"

I sat down. I'd promised Darry that I wouldn't tell but I just felt like Soda ought to know.

"I got scared last night…" Soda was staring at me. "I couldn't sleep, so I went into Darry's room to sleep on his floor. I just wanted to be with someone, not be alone. I mean… you have Pony to talk to." Soda's gaze softened.

"Scout…" he said, and left off.

"I fell asleep, but I woke up because Darry was crying. He was sobbing, Soda, not even so much because of losing Mom and Dad, but because he thought he wasn't gonna be able to do right by us. He's afraid he's gonna let us down."

Soda looked stricken.

"I didn't even know how to help him! What can I do, really? I'm twelve! I just want to help out. I know I can't cook, but you and Pony sure can't either, so I'm gonna try, Soda. I'm gonna try, because Darry can't do this by himself. He needs us too!"

Soda stared at me, then grabbed me into a hug.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should learn to shut up. I want to help out, too. What can I do?"

"Well," I thought, "someone's going to have to figure out how to do the laundry. Go get the basket." Soda disappeared and returned with a full basket, with his and Pony's best clothes on top. I started putting clothes into the washer, then hesitated.

"Socks, Soda? underwear, maybe?" He looked sheepish, disappeared, and came back with a few more items that he tossed into the machine.

I was reading the directions on the detergent. I measured out the amount and dumped it into the slot marked "detergent," then looked at Soda. He was the one who understood how machines worked. He and Steve were always building and fixing engines. There was a manual above the washer on the shelf, which I pulled out and tossed at him.

"It's all you, Einstein," I said, and walked out. "You screw it up, and we have nothing to wear tomorrow. Your turn to help out." I didn't even know why I was being snippy with him, but he didn't call me on it.

On my way through the kitchen, I checked on my chicken. It looked okay, the noodles were softening up and nothing was burning, the sauce was bubbling.

I wandered out into the living room and sat on the couch. Not five minutes after I sat down, I heard Darry's truck pull into the driveway. I felt exhausted, but tried to gather myself together.

Pony came in first, not bothering to hold the door for Darry, who was only half a step behind. I just shook my head again. I got up and pulled the door open, holding it for Darry and my Uncle, who followed right behind. He stopped in the doorway to look at me. I never thought he looked like my mom at all until right then. Suddenly I was so glad she had a sibling – as long as I had Uncle Patrick, I knew I would never forget what she had looked like. It seemed now that they could have been fraternal twins.

"Scout…" he said. Even though he was my mother's brother he called me by my dad's name for me.

"Uncle Pat," I said, and let him take me in his arms. I had been longing for the feel of an adult's touch, the feel of reassurance, like there was somebody here to make things right. I trusted Darry, truly I did, but I knew he was scared, too. Uncle Pat was the reassurance I needed at that moment. And I cried like a baby in his arms.

"Oh, Scout, I know," he said. "I'm so sorry." He sat with me on the couch until I started to calm down.

Darry snapped me out of my daze, trying his best to calm me down, too. "What are you making, Scout? It smells great."

I leaped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. My chicken! I pulled it out just at the right moment. The noodles were cooked, the chicken was tender but fully cooked, I couldn't believe my luck. Mom must have been looking down on me. I noticed that the washer was running as Soda and Uncle Pat exchanged hugs and the requisite "I'm sorry." Soda and Pat always had a special relationship – Soda's middle name is Patrick, after Uncle Pat. Pat can be a little "out there" at times, just like Soda can.

"I think we can eat," I said, surprising even myself. I was shocked to see that Soda had set the table.


	10. The Backyard

After dinner, Soda and Pony and I cleared the dishes while Darry and Uncle Pat sat and talked in the living room. We washed and dried the dishes in silence, and I could tell Pony was about to have a complete breakdown if he didn't get outside to have a smoke soon.

"Pony, just go outside. Me and Scout'll finish up." I was glad Soda had sensed his anxiety as much as I did.

"You sure?" He was just asking to be polite. He wanted out.

"Just go, Pony," I said.

"Man, that kid's an addict," Soda said when he had left.

I agreed, but didn't speak.

"Hey, you did a great job with dinner," Soda said. "I'm sorry about being a wiseass before, about getting us sick and all."

"Don't worry about it. It's okay." I knew he hadn't meant to get me upset.

"I'm glad you told me," he said, "about Darry, I mean. I'm glad he finally let some of it out. He just holds everything in, you know?"

"I know," I said. "We're just gonna have to all help out when we can, though. He needs us, but he'd never admit it." I put the last dried dish away and turned to Soda.

"I guess we're supposed to get lost," he said. Darry and Pat were still talking in the living room.

"Let's go outside," I said. Soda followed me out the door. Pony was in the back yard with Ben. This time they both were smoking.

"I don't know," Ben was saying, "I guess you're right."

"Right about what?" Soda grabbed Pony's cigarette and took a drag. He only smoked when he was upset about something, and there was no doubt he had plenty to be upset about at the moment.

Nobody answered right away.

"What, were you guys talking about us?" Soda asked.

"No… well, kinda, I guess," Pony said. "I was just saying to Ben that maybe it's better that we don't have any other family besides Pat. I mean, then we might have to decide about who goes where. This way it's just simpler. We stay together."

I didn't like the thought that there could have been another option besides us staying together. Soda spoke my thoughts.

"Pony, we woulda stayed together no matter what. We're family."

"I'm just glad it's so straightforward, that's all I was sayin'." I wondered how straightforward Pony would think it all was if he had been the one to find Darry sobbing in bed. But I said nothing.

Ben came over to me. "You doin' OK?" he asked. He threw down the cigarette and stomped it out. He knew I hated the smell.

"I don't know," I answered. He hugged me again and I allowed myself to lay my head against his chest. He had gotten so much taller over the past year. We used to be so much closer in height. Kevin was big, almost as tall as Darry, so I guessed Ben was at the beginning of a big growth spurt. My nose was at his chin height. We all just stayed outside in silence for quite a while.

"What time is it, Ben?" Soda asked. Pony and Soda always depended on other people to know the time.

"Almost ten," Ben said.

"Scout, maybe you'd better get to bed. Tomorrow's gonna be a tough day." Soda was looking at the silhouettes of Pat and Darry talking through the living room window.

"Not just for me," I said. "Why should just I have to go to bed?" Sometimes I really hated being the youngest.

"You're right," Pony seemed to want to avoid an argument. "We should probably all go in. Right, Soda?"

"Yeah," he said. "Come on, Scout." He pulled me back from Ben. I was a little annoyed; I had liked the feeling of leaning on Ben. "Good night, Ben," he said.

"'Night, guys. 'Night Scout. You hang in there."

I'll try, I thought.

Back inside, the three of us presented ourselves to Darry and Uncle Pat, momentarily interrupting their conversation. They had a pile of paperwork in front of them, and Darry looked completely ragged.

"We're gonna turn in, Dar," Soda announced for all of us. "We'll see you in the morning, Uncle Pat."

"'Night boys. 'Night, Scout," Pat looked each of us in the eyes. I went over to hug him as the boys headed into their rooms. I just needed to feel that adult touch again. "Thanks for coming," I whispered in his ear.

"Of course," he said. "You know I love you guys. You get some sleep, OK? You're my girl, right?" Pat had four boys. I was the only girl in my generation.

"Okay," I said. I knew I wouldn't sleep.


	11. The Resolve

I lay in bed and listened to the murmur of Darry and Pat talking. After another hour or so, I heard the telltale signs of conversation winding down: chairs creaking as they stood up, Pat calling for a cab back to the hotel, the slap of Pat's hand on Darry's back as they hugged goodbye, the door opening and closing.

I heard Darry go into the bathroom, run the sink and flush the toilet. The bathroom door opened, and I knew he would be at my door any second. I wondered why he didn't check in on Pony and Soda, too. My door opened with a slow creak and he came in and stood in the dark for a second, his eyes adjusting to the light.

Feeling his stare, I opened my eyes. I didn't think that he could see me.

"Still awake, huh?" He sat on the edge of my bed. He reached out and took my hand. "You still scared?"

"I don't know." I wasn't petrified like I had been the night before. I just couldn't sleep.

I was surprised at what Darry suggested.

"You think you could sleep better if you come in my room?"

I wanted to, more than anything. I wanted to feel protected again like I had the night before, with the barrier of Darry between myself and all that scared me. It took all I had not to jump out of bed and drag myself and my blankets back into Darry's bed. His room felt like an island of safety in a sea of uncertainty and confusion. But something inside me told me not to.

"I'm okay," I said, "I'm just thinking too much. I'll be fine here."

Darry was unconvinced. "You gotta sleep, baby. Can you do that in here?"

"I hope so," I said. I doubted it as much as he obviously did.

"Look, Scout, I don't mind you coming in my room if you change your mind, okay? You don't have to sneak in."

"Okay. Thanks, Dar. I think I'm good in here though." I was determined not to do it. If I wanted to help out, being able to take care of myself was going to have to be a priority. I was determined not to be a burden on Darry.

"I'm gonna go to bed then." He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "'Night Scout."

I turned over and faced the wall. "'Night Darry."

The last I remember reading the clock it was just after 4 a.m.


	12. The Funeral

I awoke to Darry shaking me. He had already showered and started making breakfast.

"Come on, Scout, you gotta get up. We have to be there at ten."

I looked at the clock. Nine o'clock. I stared up at Darry. "I don't wanna do this," I said.

"None of us do, baby. But we're gonna do it, for them."

He was right, I had to do this right; I owed it to Mom and Dad to honor them in this way. I threw back the covers, sat up, and slid my legs onto the floor.

"Good girl," Darry said, rubbing my head. "See you in a few."

I stumbled down the hall into the shower and went through the motions as though I was preparing for any other day, not the day on which I was burying my parents. I felt sick to my stomach, and had this just been an ordinary day I felt sick enough that would have just gone back to bed, but, instead, I dressed in my appointed funeral clothes, braided my hair and met my brothers in the kitchen. All three of them were wearing suits. This was unheard of.

I sat down at the table and none of us talked. I simply could not imagine what would be considered appropriate conversation at that moment. I pushed my food around; there was no way I could have forced anything down without getting sick.

"Somebody's gonna have to ride over with Two-Bit," Darry said.

I was about to ask why, until I remembered again that we had no car. It was probably not so couth to ride to your parents' funeral Beverly Hillbillies style, in the bed of a beat-up old pickup truck.

"I will," Soda said. I was glad he volunteered. I just didn't want to be separated from all of my brothers that day. I wanted to stay with Darry.

We were just finishing up breakfast when Two-Bit and Steve came in the front door. I was not at all prepared to see them dressed as they were. They both wore suits: Steve's grey, and Two-Bit's brown, and they wore expressions that matched the integrity of their clothing. It was all so disorienting to me, to be surrounded by a horde of well-dressed young men, all taking precautions to behave and speak appropriately. I looked at Two-Bit's shiny, perfect shoes and they seemed absurd. I could not imagine him owning such a pair of shoes. I felt like I was stuck in someone else's life. These people were not my brothers and their friends.

We put the dishes in the sink to be dealt with later, and Soda headed out the door with Two-Bit and Steve. Darry turned to me. "You guys ready?"

"No," I answered. Pony didn't answer.

Darry took my hand, I grabbed Pony, and we headed out to Darry's truck. I could feel Pony closing up, turning in toward himself. I usually sit in the middle but I pushed him to sit there, and to be surrounded by Darry and me. He seemed to need it the most.

We drove up to the church and walked in together with Soda, who had waited for us. I was completely floored to see the number of people there, and I know my brothers were, as well. Darry had chosen to have the services at St. Thomas', the biggest protestant church on our side of town, solely because it was the only church that our parents had ever attended by choice. Although our family didn't regularly attend church, from time to time- on holidays, mostly- we went with Ben's family to St. Thomas'. Although my mom was raised Catholic, she grew to resent the hypocrisy of a church that preached charity and compassion yet refused to forgive so many sins. The rigidity of Catholicism just didn't fit in with her easygoing nature.

An usher had met us at the door and walked us to the front row. The church was packed. I was shocked at the number of familiar faces I passed on the way to the front. There were so many kids from school there that I wondered for a moment if school had been canceled that day. I saw teachers, neighbors, classmates, Darry's football buddies and their parents… I was surprised at the number of Socs there. I guess Darry's football heroics had even crossed social class lines. I saw Johnny and Dallas in the row just behind us, both of them looking terribly uncomfortable, and like they would kill for a cigarette. I clung to Darry's hand as I passed the twin caskets, and tears welled up in my eyes. I sat in the front row, between Uncle Pat and Darry. During the sitting parts of the service, I rested my head alternately on one and then the other.

Having been to the funerals of all four of my grandparents within the past few years, I was familiar with some of the routines of the funeral service. I stood and repeated with the pastor: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me….

Uncle Pat read the eulogy, and it was perfect. He described our parents perfectly, and I wondered if Pony had inherited his writing ability from Patrick. I cried a little when Patrick described how glad he had been at their wedding, because he had known that my Dad was the kind of man who would do anything necessary to make my Mom happy. My hand wandered up to the necklace Dad had given me as my tears fell, silently. Darry pulled me close to him and squeezed my hands.

I looked up at him, solid as a rock, and I tried to be as stoic as he was. As the service ended, they wheeled my parents' coffins out of the church. Pat, my brothers, and the gang were all pallbearers, and, as they stepped forth, I felt myself suddenly alone. Nobody had prepared me for this. With nobody to lean on, I thought I might collapse. They would all ride in the hearses and the other funeral home car. Darry looked back, looking worried, suddenly realizing that I would be left alone. I didn't even know how I would get to the cemetery.

Suddenly I felt supported from behind. Hands went around my shoulders, encircling me like another necklace, and a strong body scaffolded me from the back, assuring me that no matter what, I wouldn't fall down.

"You're OK, I got you," I heard Ben whisper in my ear. I saw Darry's expression relax.

"Stay with me?" I whispered. He did. We rode together to the cemetery. Kevin and Ben's mom knew enough not to try to engage me in any conversation. Ben just held my hand and let e cry softly against his shoulder. When we got to the cemetery, Ben stood with me while they carried the caskets from the car and then he walked me up to where my family stood. Darry reached out and took my hand from Ben's. The look of gratitude that he offered Ben at that moment made me immensely thankful that my brother and my best friend trusted each other. Darry squeezed my hand and looked down at me. I leaned up against him for the remainder of the outside service. I felt pretty terrible, and was glad to have someone so solid to lean on. Eventually, the time came to lower the caskets and Darry, Soda, Pony, Pat and I stepped forward. Ben's Mom had given us each a rose to place on Mom's casket, and then we each stepped around and laid a hand on Dad's. I hung my head and cried at each one as I whispered, in turn, "Bye, Mom." "Bye, Daddy." I heard Soda and Pony crying, too, but didn't want to look at Darry. If he was crying, I knew, it must have been killing him. I knew how badly he wanted to be strong.

We all stepped back and watched as their caskets were lowered.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.'

_________________

**A/N Please review! Since I posted all of these chapters the same day it didn't recur very often as 'updated' so I have no idea if people are reading/liking it if they don't review!**

**The Sequel to "Epiphany" is called "Reality." It's now online. I hope you enjoy it!**


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